Dancer Isadora Duncan scorned the rigid rules of classical ballet and instead defined her art as an expression of natural instinct and inner feeling. Raised in a bohemian atmosphere that almost preordained those departures from convention, she began devising spontaneously choreographed pieces in the 1890s. By the early 1900s she was touring Europe, where her work won a considerable following. In the United States, however, many were scandalized by her minimal costumes and the sensual quality of her performances. Nevertheless, she had her American defenders, among them painter John Sloan. "She dances a symbol of human happiness as it should be," he wrote after first seeing her perform, "free from unnatural trammels."

The maker of this likeness, Edward Steichen, was a close friend of Duncan's and felt a special sympathy for her work. A member of the Photo-Secession movement, which sought recognition of photography as an art medium, he viewed Duncan's efforts to establish new dance forms as a struggle that paralleled the Secessionists.