The Gilded Age

First Night at the Opera, by Ethel Louise Braddock, (born NYC 1887 - died 1975)
A woman artist, born in the Gilded Age, depicts a young woman's coming-out season. The young woman is ensconced with her parents in their box, having been brought to the opera for the first time, all of them dressed in their finery, with the young woman in front so as to be seen by her potential suitors...but which opera house was it, the old Academy or the new Metropolitan? Using an array of striking colors, the artist gives us an evocative glimpse of the Gilded Age in New York.
Born in New York City in 1887, Ethel Louise Paddock studied at the Art Students League of New York and at the New York School of Art under Robert Henri and John Sloan. Paddock was a member of the National Association of Women Artists, Salons of America, Pen and Brush Club and the Society of Independent Artists, where she also exhibited and won several prizes for her work. Paddock exhibited at the Panama Pacific Exhibition of 1915, Wallace Wentworth Gallery and Grand Central Art Gallery.