Florine Stettheimer's Art Celebrated in New Biography and Ongoing Reassessment

So, there's this new biography by Barbara Bloemink called *Florine Stettheimer: A Biography* that's getting people to rethink Stettheimer's art. You know, her style features those quirky, elongated figures and really detailed but distorted scenes. Although she had a folk-art vibe, she was formally trained at the Art Students League in New York and even in Europe, influenced by works like Manet's *Olympia* and Botticelli's *Birth of Venus*. Her art often mirrored her social life in upscale Manhattan, touching on serious issues like sexism and racism. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has her *Cathedrals* series from 1929 to 1942. Interestingly, she actually participated in 45 group shows, including the first Whitney Biennial, despite the idea that she avoided exhibitions. After she died, her sister Ettie shared her art with museums, with Columbia getting the bulk. Marcel Duchamp even organized a retrospective for her at MoMA in 1946. Nowadays, people are really starting to see her as a clever artist who tackled important issues while keeping a playful tone.