As Johnson got to know his nieces and also his daughter Ethel during their teen-aged years, he realized that they were not just genteel creatures who read books, but also smart young adults who read newspapers. Of all American artists, Johnson is perhaps the only artist (besides women artists such as Lily Martin Spencer and Mary Cassatt) who shows women reading newspapers. —PH
American Art Association sale catalogue, 1916: "A group of two girls in the living-room of an American farmhouse. One, the taller of the two, in jacket of black, with red braid, and skirt of orange, is standing facing to the right, where there is an open window, and holding her hat, trimmed with a pink posy and ribbons of blue, by her side with her right hand. She seems to be ready to go out, perhaps to church, but her little sister, in plain everyday frock of green, is reaching up to arrange her collar or pin a brooch at her neck so that there may be no fault to find by the critical. A homelike, domestic scene, sincerely portrayed."
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