The Blue Dress

The Blue Dress of 1900 belongs to a group of Steer's figure paintings that sit between his early beach subjects and his later pure landscape work. The 1890s saw him paint a number of interior and garden figure subjects, influenced by the French Impressionist approach to women in contemporary dress in light-filled settings—the tradition of Monet's garden subjects and Berthe Morisot's intimate interiors. A single female figure in a blue dress against a lighter ground invited Steer to explore how dress color interacts with natural or interior illumination. The National Galleries of Scotland hold it alongside other British Impressionist works. Steer's color in this period is more contained than his experimental Walberswick paintings of 1888–1894, when he had pushed Seurat-like color division to its limits. The Blue Dress represents a more settled approach, the color harmony resolved rather than experimental.

Oil on canvas with Steer's characteristic handling of figure in light. The blue of the dress is built up through multiple layers to achieve depth of color; it is set against a lighter background allowing the color to advance.