Gibson renders Margaret Abbott — the American golfer who won the 1900 Paris Olympics women's event, the first American woman to claim an Olympic gold — as the archetypal Gibson Girl: hair piled in voluminous, swirling pompadour waves, a high banded collar, and a three-quarter profile gaze carrying quiet assurance rather than coquetry. The draftsmanship is pure pen-and-ink crosshatch, no caption visible in this cropped plate. The composition flatters its subject as socially poised and athletically confident, embodying Gibson's argument that the New Woman could be vigorous, educated, and elegant simultaneously — a pointed counter to conservative anxieties about women in sport and public life at the century's turn.
About this artifact
- Creator
- Charles Dana Gibson
- Date
- 1903
- Rights
- Public domain — free to view, share, and reuse.
- Restoration
- Digitally restored and hosted by comicbooks.com.
Part of our mission to preserve and restore the public-domain heritage of the medium.