ticketsMember | Make a donation

The Woman Driver

1928
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
Like many other European and American photographers, Pierre Dubreuil was indifferent to the industrialization of photography that followed the invention and immediate global success of the Kodak camera in the late 1880s. A wealthy member of an international community of photographers loosely known as Pictorialists, he spurned most aspects of modernism. Instead, he advocated painterly effects such as those offered by the bromoil printing process seen here. What makes this photograph exceptional, however, is the modern subject and the work’s title, The Woman Driver. Dubreuil’s wife, Josephine Vanassche, grasps the steering wheel of their open-air car and stares straight ahead, ignoring the attention of her conservative husband and his intrusive camera.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Woman Driver
  • Artist: Pierre Dubreuil (French, 1872–1944)
  • Date: 1928
  • Medium: Bromoil print
  • Dimensions: Image: 9 7/16 × 7 5/8 in. (24 × 19.3 cm)
    Framed: 21 in. × 19 1/4 in. × 1 1/4 in. (53.3 × 48.9 × 3.2 cm)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Promised Gift of Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs