Blessed Art Thou Among Women was an important work for collectors Marjorie and Leonard Vernon. Regarding the work, Dale Stulz, photography appraiser and advisor to the Vernons, wrote: "If I had to pick a special image, I’d say Blessed Art Thou Among Women because it was, in a way, a paradox. Marjorie was a very independent-minded woman… I know Marjorie had a real deep love of this picture for what it implies, not only because it’s about women, but because it’s about her protective nature for the people she loved, and on the other hand her saying, go out there, go to it."

The first auction I ever handled back in 1976, was a Martin Gordon sale that Leonard and Marjorie came to along with Maggi Weston and I first made their acquaintance. They were one of the few collectors that really would go beyond the estimates…They set a world record for Gertrude Kasebier, Blessed Art Thou Among Women, which had been secretly consigned by a very noted East Coast collector."

Curator and historian Susan Ehrens also reflected upon the significance of this photograph to the Vernons: "One of the photographs that seemed to be always to be on view was Blessed Art Thou Among Womenby Kasebier. Kasebier interested me because of Cunningham being influenced by that photograph. Leonard loved to tell us this story that (former Getty Photography Curator) Weston Naef came over and was looking at things in their collection that they had pulled out for him to see. And he saw the Kasebier and said, well, I would like that for the Getty. And Leonard said, Weston, the photograph’s not for sale."

• Salvesen, Britt. See the Light: Photography, Perception, Cognition: the Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2013.
• Muchnic, Suzanne. LACMA So Far: Portrait of a Museum in the Making. San Marino, California: Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 2015.