It is said that it was George Bellows who first suggested to William Preston Harrison that Carroll should be represented in his collection and ROBERT HENRI who actually urged the commission that resulted in the painting Lady in Blue. This seems plausible since Carroll knew both artists from Woodstock. In fact, Bellows was Carroll’s neighbor. The residence of the Ash Can artists prompted Woodstock modernists to become more concerned with realism. Encouraged by Andrew Dasburg, Carroll had experimented with abstraction, creating cubist still-life paintings similar to the arrangement of tulips and sheet music that he incorporated into the composition of Lady in Blue. Carroll’s treatment of the figure as a series of cylinders no doubt was also influenced by the work of Cézanne and of Fernand Léger (1881-1955) and the other French purists. The compression of space into a series of overlapping planes and an emphasis on curving lines describing the figure, chair, and flowers reflect Carroll’s fascination with abstract line, an interest that critics sometimes thought too decorative. Color is limited to a cool palette of tin blue for the dress and gray for the background. The painting’s archaic quality is in keeping with the strong interest of some modernists in American folk art during the late 1910s and early 1920s. The figure’s stiff, primitive character may also have been due the fact that it was based on an old photograph, which may also explain the painting’s monochromatic palette. Lady in Blue is a portrait of William Preston Harrison’s mother, Sophonisba Grayson Preston (c. 1834-1876), who was descended from the Puritans. Harrison suggested that the painting be titled Lady in Blue to avoid any criticism that might arise if a portrait of one of his relatives were installed in the museum. Regardless of the identity of the figure, the painting is of a type with the other images of single figures painted by Carroll in the 1920s.

The early twentieth century witnessed the transformation of the United States into a modern industrialized society and an international political power. By 1920 more than half of the country’s population lived in urban areas. Seeming to guarantee employment, the cities lured many farmers and African Americans from rural areas. In addition, between 1900 and 1920, 14.5 million immigrants from Europe, Russia, Mexico, and Asia settled here, primarily in urban centers. A new energy was channeled to such cities as New York and Chicago, as massive skyscrapers were erected to furnish much-needed office space and living quarters. Even West Coast cities were affected—the population of Los Angeles tripled between 1900 and 1910; its unplanned urban sprawl and dizzying speed were captured in the zany movies of the Keystone Cops, filmed on the streets of the city.

Art reflected these changing social and economic dynamics. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism were still popular. Yet other, more progressive ideas now challenged artists. A strong new commitment to realism emerged in literature and the fine arts.

In Philadelphia and New York, a group of artists centered around Robert Henri captured the vitality of urban American life. These realists depicted the hustle and bustle of city streets, the common pleasures of restaurants and various forms of entertainment. Critics dubbed these realists the “Ash Can School” because of their treatment of unidealized subject matter previously considered unattractive. These artists focused on the inhabitants of cities rather than the cities themselves. Their interest in people also led them to create a significant number of single-figure paintings, conveying the human side of the new America . During the 1910s and 1920s the realist celebration of America spread throughout the country, as artists recorded the neighborhoods and people that made their own cities distinct.