Two Girls Outdoors

Isabel Bishop (1902-1988) was an American painter known for her figure studies of young women in the urban environment of Union Square in New York City. Two Girls Outdoors from 1944 depicts two young women in the animated, gestural manner that distinguishes Bishop's figure painting from the more static manner of her Regionalist contemporaries. The 1944 date places this in Bishop's most productive period, when she was producing the figure studies of young women in Union Square that are her most accomplished works, and the outdoor setting allows her to exercise her talent for depicting figures in natural light.

Two Girls Outdoors is important in the history of American figure painting because it demonstrates Bishop's animated, gestural manner of depicting young women in the urban environment. Bishop's figure studies of young women in Union Square are among the most accomplished figure paintings in American art between the wars, and her animated, gestural manner distinguishes her work from the more static figure painting of her Regionalist contemporaries.

Two Girls Outdoors is Bishop's animated figure painting: two young women rendered in the gestural, animated manner that distinguishes her Union Square figure studies from the more static manner of her Regionalist contemporaries. The 1944 painting shows Bishop's talent for depicting figures in natural light with the energy and specificity that make her figure studies among the most accomplished in American art.