![](http://www.alamy.com/thumbs/6/A027E8AD-F24E-4185-884A-A6DB57946260/2GY45HM.jpg)
Florine Stettheimer artwork - Lake Placid - Summer happening at Lake Placid with the well to do of the time. Swimming and merrymaking order of the day.
David Tatham has suggested that Stettheimer have been making an ironic comment on the religious and class bigotry endemic in the Adirondack hotels and clubs at the time. While the diverse and highly accomplished members of Stettheimer's group were free to visit a private cottage and to frolic in the lake, they would not have been admitted to the local inns and associations because most of them were either Jewish or Roman Catholic ("Florine Stettheimer at Lake Placid, 1919: Modernism in the Adirondacks," "The American Art Journal," vol. 31, nos. 1 & 2, 2000, pp. 4-31). Contemporary art critic Henry McBride, however, did not mention such social commentary, finding the painting lighthearted and amusing. He wrote, "There is no doubt but that to her [Stettheimer] Lake Placid represents 'heaven.' The young lady swimmers all wear costumes from the smartest shops on Fifth Avenue, and the motor boats, gondolas, houseboats etc., are of the latest models. There are one or two young men at the swimming party, so Miss Stett's Aunt Kate [sic], clad in severe black, chaperones everybody from a balcony" (quoted in Bloemink, p. 99). Janet Comey
Size: 3200px × 2586px
Photo credit: © steeve-x-art / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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