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Exhibition Drawn to Purpose

Ethel M'Clellan Plummer (1888–1936). Vanity Fair on the Avenue. Cover for Vanity Fair, June 1914. India ink, gouache, and watercolor over pencil. Gift and bequest of Caroline and Erwin Swann. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (025.01.00)
LC–DIG–ppmsca–01591
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Urban Beauties

The stylishly dressed figures in this cover design by Ethel Plummer feature an emerging, slimmer model of American womanhood in the early twentieth century. Her use of line, color, and pattern in defining forms show the influence of modern American and European art. Productive, pro-suffrage, and known for her magazine covers and illustrations, Plummer was the first woman to publish a cartoon in the New Yorker.