Lady Artist

Lady Artist — Peggy Bacon. 1925.

Medium: drypoint. Dimensions: Platemark: 15.2 x 10.1 cm (6 x 4 in.); Sheet: 29.7 x 23.4 cm (11 11/16 x 9 3/16 in.).

Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Having studied with both George Bellows and John Sloan, Peggy Bacon was one of a growing number of women who sought independence and professional success in America’s cities. In this self-portrait, she portrayed herself with her etching needle poised on a copperplate. The crowded domestic setting invites her audience to see what it means to be an artist and a woman, with curious neighbors peering in and an inquisitive spider, like an omnipresent observer, above. While the easel and floor display drawings of a nude and a portrait—traditional art subjects—the copperplate reveals a more ordinary subject: the bare outline of a cat.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.