American Florine Stettheimer was a well-known New York City-based painter and designer whose studio in the Beaux-Arts building overlooked Bryant Park. With her sisters Ettie and Carrie, she held regular salons in their home on the Upper West Side, socializing with avant-garde artists and writers such as Marcel Duchamp, Georgia O’Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz, and Leo Stein. Stettheimer initially studied at the Art Students’ League, then spent nearly 20 years in Europe with her mother and sisters, where she was exposed to early modernist art forms such as Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Expressionism, which all influenced her art. The family returned to New York with the outbreak of World War I, and in 1916 she had her first solo exhibition at Knoedler & Co. After 1918, she developed her own idiosyncratic, dance-like style that remains influential on artists today. Stettheimer’s dreamy, theatrical paintings range from surrealistic, symbol-laden scenes to diaristic portrayals of upper-crust lifestyles in the interwar era. Stettheimer, who also wrote poetry and created set designs, is credited as one of the first known women to ever paint a full-scale nude self-portrait; her subversive feminist spirit infuses much of her work. The artist’s loose, liquid brushstrokes and soft, washed-out, Fauvist color palettes add a fantastical dimension to her compositions, which variously feature floral arrangements and vibrant, intricately arranged nature and party scenes viewed from distorted perspectives. In this self portrait, she is seated on a bench against a backdrop that includes a bold red tree. Dressed in a white pantsuit and red shoes, Stettheimer holds a painter’s palette filled with vivid colors in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. Behind her, leaning against the tree, is a faun rendered in a golden hue, which contrasts sharply with the pastel background. The scene is imbued with rich colors and a sense of whimsical isolation.

Self-Portrait with Palette (Painter and Faun) by Florine Stettheimer (American) - Oil on canvas / c. 1915 - Avery Library (Columbia University, New York) #WomenInArt #art #WomanArtist #WomensArt #FemaleArtist #FlorineStettheimer #Stettheimer #ArtText #ColumbiaUniversity #AmericanArtist #SelfPortrait