Isabel Bishop (American, 1902-1988), Two Sketches - Woman with Coat and Woman without Coat

Ink on paper, one signed "Isabel Bishop" at top left, the second signed with initials, matted and framed under glass, with a gallery label affixed to the verso, also retaining an autographed letter signed by the artist on her stationary reading "Dear Jane - / I am all the more delighted / by your note! Thanks, and love / Isabel" and dated Feb. 22, 1974.

Frame dimensions 15 1/4 x 17 1/2 in.

Midtown Galleries, New York
Private Collection, North Carolina


Isabel Bishop was an American painter and printmaker best known for her depictions of everyday life in New York City, particularly of working women in Union Square. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, she moved to New York as a teenager to study at the Art Students League, where she was influenced by the realist tradition. Bishop became associated with the Fourteenth Street School, a group of social realist artists who focused on urban scenes. Her work captured the rhythms of city life with a distinctive style that combined precise draftsmanship with soft, painterly brushwork. She often depicted office workers, shopgirls, and pedestrians in fleeting moments of movement and interaction, portraying their dignity and resilience with a keen observational eye.
Bishop’s career spanned several decades, during which she gained recognition for her contributions to American art. She was elected a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1941. Her art is held in major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where it remains an important record of mid-20th-century urban life.


Minor rubbing to frame; light staining to mat and minor detritus under glass; not examined out of the frame.