Work of Art c. 1930

Ella Fillmore Lillie made this lithograph, called 'Work of Art', at an unknown date. In the print, we see a woman standing on a quayside, painting the scene in front of her. What might this tell us about the social and institutional context of art production at the time? Lillie was born in 1887, and while we don’t know exactly when she made this print, we might assume that it was in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Female artists were increasingly visible at this time, but still, we might ask questions about the conditions of possibility that made a picture like this one conceivable. This image seems to offer a comment on the institutions of art. The woman in the print is in the act of making art and is the subject of it. To better understand this image, we might research the artist, the kind of art training she received, and the exhibition venues where she showed her work. More broadly, we could ask questions about the rise of women artists in America at this time.