Skip Navigation

Dressing Room

Walt Kuhn

American Art

 During the 1920s the world of the theater permitted bolder expressions of female sexuality that were gradually coming into vogue. The Brooklyn-born painter Walt Kuhn captured this spirit in a series of single portraits featuring costumed performers in intimate, offstage settings. In Dressing Room, a heavily made-up chorus girl directs her gaze outward while flaunting a self-assured stance. Kuhn’s depiction of popular entertainment from this decade contributed to the visualization of the decidedly modern woman and coincided with early feminist advocacy for women’s expanded roles in professional and social life.
MEDIUM Oil on canvas
DATES 1926
DIMENSIONS 45 x 33 1/4in. (114.3 x 84.5cm) Frame: 52 x 40 1/8 x 2 in. (132.1 x 101.9 x 5.1 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Signed lower right: "Walt Kuhn / 1926"; on bottom tacking margin: "Jan 1926"
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 27.860
CREDIT LINE Gift of Friends of the Museum
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Walt Kuhn (American, 1877–1949). Dressing Room, 1926. Oil on canvas, 45 x 33 1/4in. (114.3 x 84.5cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Friends of the Museum, 27.860. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 27.860_SL1.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 27.860_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT © Estate of Walt Kuhn
The Brooklyn Museum holds a non-exclusive license to reproduce images of this work of art from the rights holder named here. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org. If you wish to contact the rights holder for this work, please email copyright@brooklynmuseum.org and we will assist if we can.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.