Seated Woman, Sewing

Augustus John had thirty-seven works in the 1913 Armory Show in New York, which introduced American audiences to progressive European art, although his style was indebted to the Old Masters. Between the wars, he became a leading society portraitist and a household name, though his reputation waned in his later years. In addition to commissions, he often drew his friends and lovers in intimate scenes such as this one. Executed in the line-and-wash technique, which was popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it shows a young woman seated at a table, her downturned eyes focused intently on her sewing.