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Woman on Sofa

Guy Pène du Bois

American Art

The modish hairstyle, form-fitting dress, and brazenly casual pose help to identify this sitter as a flapper—the name given to liberated young American women during the Roaring Twenties.

Guy Pène du Bois is said to have found his inspiration for this painting in the work of another chronicler of the era, F. Scott Fitzgerald. The writer’s 1922 short story “Gretchen’s Forty Winks” featured the character Gretchen Halsey, “a bright-colored, Titian-haired girl, vivid as a French rag doll.”
MEDIUM Oil on panel
DATES ca. 1922-1927
DIMENSIONS 26 x 31 in. (66 x 78.7 cm) frame: 25 3/4 × 30 1/2 × 3 1/4 in. (65.4 × 77.5 × 8.3 cm)
SIGNATURE Signed and dated lower left: Guy Pene du Bois 27
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 63.148.1
CREDIT LINE Gift of Chester Dale
EXHIBITIONS
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
RECORD COMPLETENESS
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