How does this artwork elucidate its Description?
Red Kimono on the Roof is a matter-of-fact depiction of a woman in a vibrant red wrap hanging laundry on a New York roof, clothespin in her mouth. Sloan's spontaneous brushwork give the painting a sense of immediacy, while his careful attention to light and shade suggests the passage of time. This particular slice of the Lower East Side probably caught Sloan's eye due to the kimono worn by the woman, a charmingly bohemian sartorial choice that meshed well with the novel Maratta color system Sloan had just begun using on his typically sober paintings. This painting also marks a shift from horizontal to vertical in Sloan's canvases, an artistic and perceptual shift that occurred between 1909 and 1915.
canvas Lower East Side