#GoodRead | Florine Stettheimer: Feminist Provocateur
"Florine Stettheimer: Feminist Provocateur":
Among her distinctive subjects, Stettheimer painted women’s personae in highly unusual, female-oriented contexts normally never depicted as subject matter for works of art. In her monumental 1921 work Spring Sale at Bendel’s, for example, she humorously captured wealthy women of varying girths trying on clothing in an expensive department store. Despite their upper-class stature, a number of them throw themselves across a table, grabbing scarves from one another like hogs at feeding time. Weary salespeople look on while women of all ages twirl and bend, contorting their bodies as they decide whether their outfits are flattering. The only men in the painting are put-upon assistants and the harried store manager.