Lady on the Boulevard 1892

Maurice Prendergast probably made this oil painting of a woman on the street sometime around the turn of the twentieth century. Prendergast belonged to a group called 'The Eight', painters who embraced realism and were committed to painting modern urban life in the US. Here, the woman is presented in a sketchy and informal style, and the artist focuses on capturing an everyday scene of a city street. He probably painted this in New York, at a time when questions of women’s social roles were being renegotiated. The image could be seen as reflecting changing attitudes to women’s role in public spaces at that time. Paintings like this can give us insights into both the changing appearance of the modern city and the evolution of social relations. As historians, we might consult census records, newspapers and magazines from that time, in order to understand more about the historical context in which this painting was produced and first exhibited.