Isabel Bishop (1902–1988), Woman Walking

Isabel Bishop (1902–1988)
Woman Walking, c. 1933
Black ink and wash on paper, 12 7⁄8 x 9 inches
Gift of the Reverend Richard L. Hillstrom

Born in Cincinnati, Bishop moved to New York City in 1918 to study art. As with many of the artists in the Hillstrom Collection, she studied at the Art Students League, where her most important influence was Kenneth Hayes Miller (1876–1952). Bishop, Miller, Reginald Marsh (1898–1954), and others were part of the 14th Street School, a group of New York artists who portrayed the modern, urban scene around Union Square and the commercial, lower and middle class areas of 14th Street in their works. Bishop had her studio and living quarters on 14th Street until her 1934 marriage, after which she maintained, for decades, a studio on Union Square (while living in Riverdale in Brooklyn). Bishop often depicted shop girls, office girls, and shoppers observed in her neighborhood. She often made quick sketches on the street, sometimes developing them further in her studio, to which she might invite the subject back to model for her. In this drawing of a woman in coat and hat and clutching her purse in her arm, the artist lent a wistful air to the subject, whose face seems both disconnected and concerned, perhaps tired after a full day of work and facing a walk home in her heeled shoes. Bishop frequently gave little indication of the specific setting in which her figures act, and here there are only a few lines and a small amount of wash to set the space without in any way identifying it.

Text from the catalogue for the exhibition The Eight, The Ashcan School, and The American Scene in the Hillstrom Collection, presented in the Hillstrom Museum of Art February 25 through April 21, 2013.