An American Oriental dates from the first years of du Bois’s mature period and consequently is not completely characteristic of his later work. It was originally exhibited as New York Oriental, the term Oriental referring to a dark, exotic woman. The woman in this painting is not one of the fashionably dressed ladies du Bois usually depicted in his typical mature paintings but is a common, urban gypsy. In contrast to the two flappers depicted in Shops, 1922 (LACMA; q.v.), who also stand before a black, wrought-iron fence on a city street, this Oriental brazenly confronts the viewer with her direct gaze and open, frontal pose.
Du Bois was a master of modern design. He conceived the Oriental as dark, shadowy, and fully modeled in contrast to the flat, brilliant orange brick wall she stands before and the gleaming white steps nearby. The scene is a slightly asymmetrical arrangement of three simplified areas of color held together by the iron fence. The woman’s head is slightly cropped by the top of the canvas. In the late nineteenth century this compositional device became synonymous with contemporaneity; it does not, however, appear in du Bois’s other paintings. The brick wall and adjoining door are painted in the highly saturated hues that became the hallmark of his paintings from the 1920s.
