The multi-talented Angna Enters earned distinction as a painter, sculptor, and writer. She won her greatest acclaim, however, as a dancer-mime. Following her New York stage debut in 1923, she went on to found her own dance company and to perform in more than 150 compositions of her own devising. Once seen, a critic declared in 1926, she was "never to be forgotten." At the heart of her talent, wrote another observer, lay a power to make "the most trivial and ordinary events and characters significant."

Artist John Sloan first encountered Enters as a pupil in one of his classes at New York's Art Students League. In his portrait of her, the expressiveness of the posture and arms were clearly intended to pay tribute to his subject's gift for mime. The black dress that Enters wore in the picture was typical of her somber offstage garb. She reserved bright colors, she said, for her performances.