In the Boudoir is typical of the many informal interior scenes Frieseke painted throughout his career. Although he much preferred to paint outdoors, the American public of the 1910s more readily bought his boudoir scenes of women involved in their toilette or in some other feminine activity. The artist’s wife, Sarah, better known as Sadie, usually posed as his model in their home. In this painting, as in many of Frieseke’s interiors of the 1910s, the model lounges in a room decorated with elegant French rococo furniture and an oriental carpet. In contrast to the figure’s restful pose, the scene is alive with decorative patterning. Frieseke’s interior is similar to those by Edouard Vuillard (18681940). Both artists often presented their figures in corners of rooms, viewing them diagonally and from a slightly elevated viewpoint. The floor tilts up, flattening the space of the room and thereby emphasizing the painting as an arrangement of flat shapes and patterns. Frieseke differed from Vuillard in his tendency to present his models more intimately attired or involved in more personal activities. In Torn Lingerie, 1915 (Saint Louis Art Museum), the model reveals her lovely leg while mending her slip, and in In the Boudoir she abandons her sewing basket to stretch out comfortably on the settee, allowing her kimono to slip off and expose her shoulders and breast. The palette of Frieseke’s interiors from his middle period varies in brilliance, some being as intense as his sunlit garden views. In the Boudoir is, in fact, one of his more delicate interiors of the mid-1910s: soft pastel blues, lavenders, and yellows predominate, and a silvery white is pervasive. There exists a smaller, almost exact version of In the Boudoir painted in a stronger palette (see Related Work). Frieseke occasionally painted smaller versions of completed paintings he admired. It is not known if the smaller version of this composition is such a replica or a study for the larger painting. When the painting was exhibited at the Anglo-American Exposition in London in 1914, it was praised for its subtlety and found more satisfactory than Frieseke’s other exhibit, The Garden Umbrella, n.d. (Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Savannah, Ga.). According to a letter from the New York dealer Robert Macbeth to Frieseke, In the Boudoir was bought out of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, where it won the grand prize. Mr. and Mrs. Baich, the collectors who donated the painting to the museum, began acquiring art in the mid-1910s and were known to purchase works from San Francsico dealers. Although it cannot be verified, it is quite plausible that the Balches may have bought In the Boudoir in 1915.

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.