Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones, Shoe Shop, 1911.
Oil on canvas, 99.1 x 79.4 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago
I love this painting for its aesthetic qualities and for its complexity. At first blush, this is a simplistic, somewhat romanticized depiction of a seemingly insignificant moment. Stylistically, this scene recalls the work of Mary Cassett and many French Impressionists. Drawing upon established artistic techniques, Sparhawk-Jones uses dramatic tones of yellow, white, black, and red, as well as thick brush work to portray her female subjects in a soft, diffuse fashion. Yet, these technical choices serve to "re-present" the ordinary in an extraordinary fashion. Refigured and illuminated in this new manner, the painting challenges viewers’ routine perceptions and seeks to develop new views of contemporary experience. The title, Shop Girls, and the decision by Sparhawk-Jones to foreground an image of working class women waiting on wealthy customers all work together to challenge class divisions in our “egalitarian” society and to emphasize the social, political, and economic limitations faced by American women at the start of the twentieth century. A viewer could easily fail to read these socially provocative messages, focusing instead on the painting's beautiful use of color and form.
Certainly the composition is structured as a group portrait, similar to the work of John Singer Sargent, whose own portraiture used verticality and a slight distortion of surrounding space to emphasize his subjects. Sparhawk-Jones’ key decision to construct a group portrait with this same kind of emphasis speaks to a desire to expose or challenge social groupings that we fail to view with a critical eye and often participate in unthinkingly.
As we examine the painting more closely, our eyes are drawn to the tall woman found at the far left of the painting who evidences wealth and status with an elaborate hat and expensive clothing. A similar customer is seated nearby. Both women are equally intent on their purchases, simultaneously treating the women waiting on them as fixtures, or figures arranged for their pleasure and satisfaction. Sparhawk-Jones cleverly complicates this traditional scene by having her tallest subject glance admiringly at her shoes. As our attention is drawn downward we subsequently focus on the shop girls attending to their customers. In contrast, the shop employees are plainly dressed in black and white. We can only see the back of one girl, but her posture is one of humility and service. The other young girl is presented with attentiveness, but an air of sadness, despite her humble posture. Their plain figuration, and their lack of individual features or individual markings related to wealth or distinction, all reinforce the message that undergirds this painting: who are we overlooking each day?
Completing our downward gaze we note an array of rejected shoes found at each customer’s feet and we begin to question the consumptive practices depicted in this work. The partial, vague figures observed in the background of the painting (identified by their elaborate hats) wait impatiently for someone to attend to them, further reinforcing the painting’s tension related to consumption, social hierarchies, and commercial exchange.
Sparhawk-Jones' choice of setting further complicates her visual work. Certainly the shoe shop, while not a domestic space, is a “closed” female space. It operates in some respects like a harem, with its draped curtains and its lack of any clearly perceived window or door. This is not a space for male customers. It mirrors the kind of isolated, female-dominated places which prevailed in Western cultures at the turn of the nineteenth century and reminds viewers of the complex restrictions that many disenfranchised, “domesticated” women faced in early twentieth-century American society.
A woman of extraordinary talent, Sparhawk-Jones’ work is often dismissed by art critics as “light-hearted" and she remains largely overlooked today. Born in Philadelphia in 1885, she died in 1968. If she is remembered at all, it is for her earlier paintings completed before 1918, which are situated between the work of Mary Cassett and the startling images of urban realism produced by American artists associated with the Ash Can Movement. Sparhawk-Jones did not have the wealth or family support to continue her studies in Paris like her contemporary, Cassett. Her classical technical training, her limited upbringing, and the constraints imposed upon her as a woman did not provide her with the same kind of artistic vocabulary available to her male counterparts, including noted Ash Can members Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, George Luks, and George Bellows (see examples below). She was not exposed to the experimental painting styles they developed, nor did she have access to the kinds of public spaces (bars, back alleys, boxing rings) these artists employed as their subjects. Does this make her any less of an urban realist?
The current narrative associated with the life of Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones also references substantial periods of “mental illness,” yet this is often the label given to women who found they could not conform to traditional expectations. While I find Shoe Shop to be a complex and intriguing work, it is this last thought that most poignantly reminds me think more profoundly about redefining the "ordinary" and to search more consistently for the many aspects of contemporary and historical experience that have yet to be unveiled.
The current narrative associated with the life of Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones also references substantial periods of “mental illness,” yet this is often the label given to women who found they could not conform to traditional expectations. While I find Shoe Shop to be a complex and intriguing work, it is this last thought that most poignantly reminds me think more profoundly about redefining the "ordinary" and to search more consistently for the many aspects of contemporary and historical experience that have yet to be unveiled.
