The Bather was the most controversial painting in Heward’s oeuvre during her life. Unlike many of her paintings that were critically lauded when first exhibited, it received harsh reviews. The subject sits in an unflattering pose, her shoulders hunched while she looks out at the viewer.

That an unidealized white female caused such anxiety in viewers of the time indicates that Heward had produced a work that challenged notions of how women should be represented in early twentieth-century Canadian painting.