Girls sitting in Union Square fountain

1936

Girls sitting in Union Square fountain, 1936. Isabel Bishop (American, 1902–1988). Etching; platemark: 14.8 x 12.4 cm (5 13/16 x 4 7/8 in.); sheet: 29.4 x 23.1 cm (11 9/16 x 9 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of John Bonebrake 2014.58 Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Isabel Bishop arrived in New York City to study illustration in 1918. She explored the city from her studio on Fourteenth Street and Union Square, focusing mostly on the young working women in the neighborhood. Positioning her protagonists from a distance, as one might encounter them on a street, her works epitomize the pleasure of people watching in the city. Her subjects, many of whom stitched garments or made artificial flowers at hatmaker shops nearby, were consumers of fashion themselves. A tight-fitting skirt and stylish hat could assert femininity, personal expression, and modernity. The fountain behind the young women in this print was at the time an active drinking fountain, bringing fresh water from Croton reservoir in upstate New York.