Bishop's Progress

Somewhere between the fancy counterfeits of fashion pictures and the buttocky satires of Reginald Marsh is the truth about the New York Working Girl's life & looks. Of her few sympathetic interpreters in art, the subtlest last week had an exhibition at Manhattan's Midtown Galleries.

In the last few years Isabel Bishop's paintings have mildly haunted many a visitor to big exhibitions. Her style, formed by thorough study at Manhattan's Art Students' League and exceptional resistance to its influence, is noted for: 1) sensitive modeling of form, and 2) a submarine pearliness and density of atmosphere. Critics who like 1) better than 2) were gratified by Office Girls (see cut}, just finished in time for the exhibition.

If all Isabel Bishop's paintings have the quality of forms remembered, this was a clearer and more solid memory. The black skirt of one girl and the orange jacket of the other were definite and strong notes in the composition. And not only were the figures classically balanced but their lackadaisical, toe-swinging pose was sharply observed and evocative.

Slender, dark, bustling Isabel Bishop, 36, has her studio at Broadway and 17th Street, hard by Union Square. Such paintings as Office Girls begin with a fast sketch done on the street, followed by a carefully composed etching. Models for her final, slowly and delicately built paintings are always girls found in the neighborhood, never professionals. The thing she feels about them and tries to communicate in her painting, she says, is their "mobility in life." the very fact that they do not belong irrevocably to a certain class, that anything may happen to them.

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