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| John Sloan c 1891 |
Continuing the intermittent theme on the New York "Ashcan
School" (William Glackens, Robert Henry, George Luks, Everett
Shinn, and George Bellows) the next artist I'm featuring is John Sloan.
John
French Sloan (1871 – 1951) was born in 1871 in Lock Haven, Pa. After he
finished high school, he worked for booksellers and dry-goods dealers. He
studied briefly under Thomas Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
and in 1892 was employed by the Philadelphia
Inquirer as a newspaper artist. Robert Henri encouraged him as a painter,
and he was influenced by Japanese prints. In 1895 he moved to the Philadelphia Press, for which he drew
full-page colour pictures until 1902. His early paintings were street scenes,
sombre in colour, vivid and direct in execution. These were first exhibited in
1900 in Chicago and Pittsburgh, and he was included in a New York group show in
1901.
Sloan
married in 1901 and in 1904 moved to New York. For many years he supported
himself as a magazine illustrator and after 1906, as a teacher. A series of 10
etchings of city life in 1905-1906, rich in content, often with undercurrents
of humor or irony, found no purchasers. Though his work was seen in these years
in the Carnegie International Exhibition and the National Academy of Design,
more often than not his pungent and un-idealized urban scenes were rejected by
academic critics. It was in part his rejection by the academy in 1907 that
caused Henri to withdraw from that organisation. Sloan was one of the group of
painters called "The Eight," whose exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery
in 1908 called attention to the radical subject matter and vigorous execution
of five of the painters - Henri, Sloan, William Glackens, George Luks, and
Everett Shinn.
Sloan and
his wife joined the Socialist party in 1910, and he became art editor of its
magazine The Masses, to which he
contributed some of his most compelling drawings. In 1910 and again in 1913 he
was an unsuccessful candidate for the New York State Assembly. He withdrew from
the party in 1914 but remained on the staff of The Masses for two more years. He sold his first painting in 1913
to Dr. Albert C. Barnes. He was well represented that same year in the
celebrated Armory Show but was too completely a representational artist to have
much sympathy for the new European movements exhibited there.
Sloan was
an active teacher at the Art Students League and served as its president in
1931. He was president of the Society of Independent Artists from 1918 until
his death; this organisation staged large, no-jury, no-prize shows from 1917
until 1944.
From 1914
to 1918 Sloan spent the summers in Gloucester, Mass. where he painted
landscapes as well as people. He travelled to the Southwest for the first time
in 1919, and for the rest of his life spent long periods in Santa Fe, N. Mex.
where he built a house in 1940. The life of the Indians, the ceremonial
activities of the Spanish inhabitants, and the dramatic desert landscape
provided powerful new subjects. In 1931 he was active in organising a large
exhibition of Indian tribal arts.
After
about 1930 Sloan painted no more city scenes but became increasingly concerned
with studies of the nude. The late paintings are monumental and technically
innovative. In contrast to the direct execution of his earlier work, these are
carefully constructed with monochrome underpainting, upon which an elaborate
surface of bold cross-hatchings in colour gives startling relief.
The power
of Sloan's personality is well conveyed in Gist
of Art (1939), a compilation of statements made to his students which were
recorded by Helen Farr, who became his second wife, in 1944. Sloan died on
Sept. 7, 1951, in Hanover, N.H.
This is
part 1 of a 5-part post on the works of John Sloan:
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1890 George Eliot
etching 14 x 10.1 cm |
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1890 Self-portrait
oil on 'window shade' |
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1893 Professional Nurse
watercolour 27.3 x 22.9 cm |
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1894 Schuylkill River
etching 26.7 x 21.9 cm |
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1895 Moods
commercial relief 51.4 x 32 cm |
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1895 The Echo
commercial relief and letterpress 24 x 14.4 cm |
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1896 Cinder-Path Tales
commercial lithography 9.4 x 34.5 cm |
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1896 Head of a Boy
61 x 76.2 cm |
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1900 Green's Cats
oil on canvas 55.9 x 76.2 cm |
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1900 Illustration for 26 August Philadelphia Press
ink and watercolour |
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1900 Independence Square, Philadelphia
oil on canvas 68.6 x 55.9 cm |
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1901 East Entrance, City Hall, Philadelphia
oil on canvas 69.2 x 91.4 cm |
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1901 Illustration for Philadelphia Press 5 May
ink and watercolour 54.6 x 44.5 cm |
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1902 Dupont's Ride
etching 14.9 x 11.1 cm |
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1902 George Sotter
oil on canvas 76.2 x 61 cm |
+oil+on+canvas+68.9+x+55.9+cm.jpg) |
1902 Young Woman in Black and White ( Mary Kerr )
oil on canvas 68.9 x 55.9 cm |
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1903 Dock Street Market
oil on canvas 61.6 x 92.1 cm |
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1903 Girl Seated
drypoint 26.4 x 22.4 cm |
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1903 Little Savoyards
etching 14.9 x 11.1 cm |
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1903 Madame Mondigo
etching 14.9 x 11.1 cm |
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1903 Monsieur Bellequeue
etching 14.9 x 11.1 cm |
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1903 Will Bradner
etching 32.1 x 23.5 cm |
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c1903 The Day on the Roof
crayon on paper 34.3 x 38.1 cm |
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1904 Boy with Piccolo
oil on canvas 68.5 x 56 cm |
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1904 Charles Paul de Kock
etching 54.3 x 43.5 cm |
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1904 Madame de Grangeville
etching 14.9 x 11.1 cm |
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1904 Mademoiselle Violette
etching 14.9 x 11.1 cm |
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1904 Monsieur Dermilly, Benevolent Artist
etching 14.9 x 11.1 cm |
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1904 Monsieur Dermilly, Benevolent Artist
etching 14.9 x 11.1 cm |
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1904 Monsieur Mirotaine Waters the Wine
etching 14.9 x 11.1 |
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1905 Robert Henri
etching 48 x 38.2 cm |
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1905 Stein in Profile
oil on canvas 91.4 x 69.5 cm |
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1905 Turning Out the Light
etching 12.7 x 17.8 cm |
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1905-06 Ferry Slip, Winter
oil on canvas 55.1 x 80.5 cm |
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1905-06 Sunset, West Twenty-Third Street
oil on canvas 61 x 91.4 cm |
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c1905-07 Daisy
oil on canvas 68.6 x 55.9 cm |
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1906 Dust Storm, Fifth Avenue
oil on canvas 55.9 x 68.6 cm |
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1906 Jewellery Store Window
etching 27.8 x 21.6 cm |
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1906 Mother
etching 39.2 x 32.9 cm |
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1906-07 The Picnic Grounds
oil on canvas 61 x 91.4 cm |
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1907 Easter Eve
oil on canvas 81.3 x 66 cm |
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1907 Election Night
oil on canvas 67 x 82 cm |
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1907 Grey and Brass
oil on canvas 55.9 x 68.6 cm |
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+oil+on+canvas+68.9+x+55.9+cm.jpg)
