Gertrude S. Drick "Woe"

Rowland Elzea writes, "Gertrude Drick (Smith) was a genuine Greenwich Village character. The story of her engineering the Declaration of Independence of Greenwich Village in 1917 in order to appeal to President Wilson for protection as a small nation, which Sloan memorialized in his etching Arch Conspirators, has been told in a number of places...Gertrude, who had been Sloan's pupil at the Art Students League, wrote him in 1944, 'A letter, this morning, from Joe (my Aunt of whom you have heard me speak) says, this question and answer - What is said to be the most perfect hand ever painted? The right hand of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. I would certainly change this, and say both hands of Gertrude painted by John Sloan!'" (John Sloan’s Oil Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, Part 1, Newark, Delaware, 1991, p. 213)

He continues, "In Gist of Art Sloan wrote of the subject of this very handsome portrait, 'Her visiting card was edged in heavy black and bore the single word 'woe.' She had a witty, quick intelligence and I believe she liked to do the unexpected, especially during the years she lived in Greenwich Village. A happy memory - here's luck to her.' The joke, of course, was that when questioned about her card, she would reply, 'Woe is me!'" (John Sloan’s Oil Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, p. 213)