Everett Shinn 1876 - 1953

Muriel McCormick Hubbard (granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller and Cyrus McCormick)
Private Collection, Greenwich, Connecticut
Private Collection, 1959 (acquired from the estate of the above; sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 23, 2007, lot 63, illustrated)
Acquired by the present owner at the above sale

Executed in 1903, Window Shopping belongs to a series of pastels by Everett Shinn depicting fashionable figures on the streets of New York. In discussing these scenes, Janay Wong notes: "Shinn may have appreciated the way shop windows, like the vaudeville stage, created a fantasy space that functioned also as a site of cultural exchange. Moreover, he may have been drawn to the 'modernity' of the shop window, which had only recently come into being, the result of new technologies that made possible the production of plate glass, colored glass, and electric light. The new materials reconfigured the domain of the theater and shop window by producing dazzling visual effects. Items for sale were showcased and dramatically lit attracting customers as if to a Broadway stage" (Everett Shinn: The Spectacle of Life, New York, 2000, p. 64).