The role of fine art and artists in the history of department stores is largely understudied within the literature surrounding nineteenth and early twentieth century American consumer culture. Addressing this omission in the literature, this thesis positions artists, as well as fine art more generally, as central to the institutionalization and development of the department store within the modern American consumer landscape. Focusing on the department store window as a central location for the intersection of fine art and consumption through an art historical lens, I will explore the impact of the visual and spatial transformation of these consumer spaces on the formation of gendered identities within American consumer culture. Examining Saks Fifth Avenue and its collaboration with Alexander Archipenko as a case study within the history of American department stores, I demonstrate the fundamental ways in which artists' transformations of the department store impacted modern American consumers' interactions with these retail environments. Through shoppers' experiences with the department store as a location for the production and consumption of fine art, American consumers were simultaneously encouraged and obligated to use art as a means for signaling a modern consumer identity.