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The Polka Dot Dress
George Luks (born Williamsport, PA 1866-died New York City 1933)
1927
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 58 x 37 in. (147.4 x 94.0 cm)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Howard Weingrow
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
George Luks depicted a working-class woman looking regal in her polka-dot dress, white gloves, and flowered hat. She wears her finery proudly as if to defy anyone who might look down on her. Luks felt at home in the slums of New York and often commented on the honesty and humility of workers. His portraits and genre scenes insisted on the humanity of people on the margins of society. As one Harper’s Weekly critic wrote, “. . . fearless good nature and a genuine tenderness . . . help make George Luks’ paintings about as vital an art as one can imagine.” (O’Toole, George Luks: An American Artist, 1987)
