EVERETT SHINN, Window Shopping

Muriel McCormick Hubbard (granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller and Cyrus McCormick)
Private Collection, Greenwich, Connecticut
Acquired by the present owner from the estate of the above, 1959

In discussing Shinn's window shopping 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, 200, p. 64).