# The Polka Dot Dress

- By: George Luks (born Williamsport, PA 1866-died New York City 1933)
- Date: 1927
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 58 x 37 in. (147.4 x 94.0 cm)
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Howard Weingrow
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=15249)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/f0d7ae5b1e29642709e5f252b1eed7f7.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

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)