Despite the passage of the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote, and the rise of the feminist movement, inequality remained prevalent in the art world during the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Gallery shows and museum exhibitions avoided displaying artwork by female artists, as evidenced by only 16% women artists in the 1913 Armory Show and artist Marguerite Zorach being the only female among seventeen artists in the 1916 Forum Exhibition of Modern American Painters. Modernist Florine Stettheimer believed art should not be judged based on the gender of the artist. Despite this belief and her staunch feminism, Stettheimer’s work fell victim to the “female” label due to her private market decisions and colorful style.

Born in 1871 in Rochester, New York, Florine Stettheimer grew up in a wealthy Jewish family. After her father suddenly left, Florine, her mother Rosetta and four siblings moved to Germany. Rosetta Stettheimer’s large inheritance allowed her family to live independently. Florine began her artistic training as a young girl at the Preserches Institute in Stuttgart. In the 1890s, the Stettheimer’s moved back to New York. Florine, along with her two younger sisters Carrie and Ettie, never married. Their aunt, Josephine, became the first woman to take classes at Columbia University. Carrie managed the family affairs, Ettie pursued philosophy and literature at Barnard College, and Florine continued her arts education, becoming a complex, versatile artist. Her style ranged from Post-Impressionism to Dada to Surrealism. She also wrote poetry. Although the public never recognized Stettheimer as a successful artist during her lifetime, today she is known as an independent, Jewish symbolist painter and poet. She embraced the style of modernism by freely conveying her own aesthetic perspective in her artwork.

Stettheimer studied at the Art Students League in New York at the age of thirty-three. She learned life drawing and classical sculpture. In fact, the Art Students’ League was the first art school in New York to allow women to learn life drawing. Stettheimer mastered capturing human anatomy with light, shadow and three-dimensional techniques. She spent extensive periods in France, Germany and Italy taking classes and experimenting with new media. In 1900, the Art Students’ League publically displayed Stettheimer’s work for the first time.

After her time at the Art Students League, Stettheimer began to shift from academic techniques to more modern styles. She explored Neo-impressionism and became fascinated with the visual effects of flowers. The Ballet Russes in Paris inspired Stettheimer to create her own ballet called Orphee of the Quat-z-Arts (1914). She made relief maquettes, four clay sculptures and a costume parade of Parisian students using oil paints, yarn, fabric, lace and human hair. The New York City skyline also intrigued Stettheimer. She painted New York/Liberty (1914) which depicted New York City based on her feelings about the city, rather than what it actually looked like.

In 1916, Knoedler Gallery in New York displayed Stettheimer’s work in a solo exhibition. Her paintings received mixed reviews and nothing sold, which she found displeasing. Later, Stettheimer and her sisters decided to lead a salon from their home. It became a major gathering place for New York avant-garde artists such as Marguerite Zorach and Georgia O’Keeffe.

Stettheimer began to paint radically colored subjects and forms on flat planes. She commonly depicted herself as an artist with a palette, brush and smock or a faun to emphasize primitive feelings, which is seen in Self-Portrait with Palette (Painter and Faun) (undated). Friends and family became frequent subjects of Stettheimer’s works. Close friend Marcel Duchamp, who introduced Stettheimer to the world of Dada, is the subject of many portraits. Stettheimer used satire in works such as, A Model (Nude Self-Portrait), (1915), Spring Sale at Bendels (1921) and Beauty Contest: To the Memory of P.T. Barnum (1924) to mock the overbearing nature of society towards women. In addition, Stettheimer explored Surrealism through portraiture. She elongated bodies and decorated flat spaces with flashy décor. Every object, color and form in these portraits alluded to aspects of that specific person’s life. For example, Portrait of My Sister, Carrie W. Stettheimer (1923) paints Stettheimer’s sister, Carrie, in a lavish gown at the center of the work with a dollhouse in reference to one she actually built, and the rest of the Stettheimer family in the background to emphasize Carrie’s central role in the group.

Stettheimer viewed her artwork as personal and special; therefore, she was reluctant to sell her paintings. In fact, after Knoedler Gallery, Stettheimer held no solo shows and turned down an opportunity at Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery. Instead, she chose to exhibit her work in less competitive scenes such as the Society of Independent Artists. Despite her lack of public attention, Stettheimer’s refusal to sell freed her from patrons and the art market, allowing her to paint as she pleased.

In 1934, Stettheimer achieved critical success, but not for her paintings. She designed the set and costumes for Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s modernist opera Four Saints in Three Acts. The show performed on Broadway with a full African American cast. The unconventionality of the play made it a success.

Stettheimer did not attain deserved recognition during her lifetime. She maintained a stereotypical female lifestyle by keeping her artwork private, using floral and vibrant colors, and painting family and friends. Although Stettheimer remained free to paint what she pleased and her work solely reflected the product of her voice, the “femininity” of her art made it less appealing to the public.

Following the death of Florine Stettheimer’s sisters, forty-five of her works were given to thirty-seven different institutions and fifty works went to Columbia University. Stettheimer became the subject of posthumous retrospectives at the MoMA in 1946. The Whitney reintroduced her to the public in 1995 which, finally bestowing the fame she deserved. Today, The Jewish Museum honors Stettheimer in its exhibit, Florine Stettheimer: Painting and Poetry.