Girl with red Hat

Raphael Soyer, a keen observer of people, painted Girl with Red Hat around 1940. His inspiration for this canvas came when he accompanied his wife Rebecca on a shopping trip and observed a woman before a mirror. He had long been attracted to depicting the working classes whom he observed in the streets of New York.

Soyer arranged to have a model pose for him in order to produce this picture. Of this particular model, he recalled only that she posed twice in different costumes and then she just disappeared (1). He commented “I used to do a lot of those things – a kind of genre painting. I don’t do them any more because it’s not done any more. No specilic reason …. Everyone was different in those days, now it’s impossible”(2).
During this period, Soyer produced a number of canvases of working class women including Shop Girls (c. 1936), Ofjice Girls (1936), Lunch Hour (1936) and Window Shoppers (1938). It is interesting that as this woman regards herself in the mirror, we see her companion’s reflection rather than her own. Soyer has observed this woman’s self-absorption and vanity. He has focused our attention on her red hat, adding very bright lipstick to match. Her companion’s gaze and posture, as well as her own expression, reflect a contemplative mood. Soyer has written: “In my opinion, if the art of painting is to survive, it must describe and express people, their lives and times. It must communicate …”(3).

Gail Levin

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(1) Author’s interview with Raphael Soyer, I June 1985. New York.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Quoted in Lloyd Goodrich, Raphael Soyer (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, I967), p. 5.