This portrait features an unidentified Black girl with a dog in her lap. Students at the Ruth School For Girls were wards of the Seattle Juvenile Court and described as “misfits in the public schools.” The School opened in 1922 and provided school services until 1955. The artist Kathleen Houlahan (1887-1964) was born in Winnipeg, Canada, and grew up in Pasadena, California. She moved to Seattle in 1901 to attend the University of Washington. She also studied art in Europe, California, Washington D.C., and with Robert Henri at the Art Students League of New York, where she was one of his most loyal students. Her portraits demonstrate her love of Henri’s work and her ability to adapt his style to meet her objectives. She painted vivid portraits of figures of the Northwest and studies of Southwestern Indigenous peoples.