Store Window, 1940
20 x 26”, oil on canvas mounted
on board with original frame and
artist’s label verso (see below)
Verso with artist’s label describing
the painting as her impression of
Fifth Avenue store window with
women’s accessories, mannequin head,
veil, etc. Note the hand, lower right!
Hazel Burnham Slaughter is one of a group of highly talented woman commercial designers who were also painters, sculptors, and interior decorators, working in New York City in the 1910s, 20s, and 30s. Others of the group include Marguerite Zorach, the sisters Ilonka and Mariska Karasz, and Martha Ryther. Many of these talented women artists are just being rediscovered today. The Cooper-Hewitt recently organized an exhibition devoted to Karasz while the Farnsworth Museum mounted a show on Zorach’s fiber art pieces. Most of these women also were known for their role in the revival of the batik dyeing technique, which was very au courant in Greenwich Village in the 1910s and 20s. Artists used collections of the American Museum of Natural History to inspire many designs. Slaughter was hired by the leading textile firms Mallinson and Cheney Brothers to create designs for upholstery and dress fabric. Examples of Slaughter’s textiles are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had never before seen a painting by her, so when I spotted this one at an antiques show, I snapped it up.