Everett
Shinn
(b Woodstown, NJ, 6 Nov 1876; d New York, 1 May 1953).
American painter, illustrator, designer, playwright and film director. He
studied industrial design at the Spring Garden School in Philadelphia from
1888 to 1890. In 1893 he became an illustrator at the Philadelphia
Press. Simultaneously he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts, Philadelphia, where he met Robert Henri, John Sloan, William J.
Glackens and George Luks. Their style of urban realism prompted him to
depict the bleak aspects of city life. In 1897 Shinn moved to New York and
produced illustrations for several newspapers and magazines, for example
Mark Twain (March 1900; see Perlman, p. 80), a frontispiece for
The Critic. He also drew sketches for a novel by William Dean Howells
on New York; although the novel was not published, Shinn’s drawings
brought him national recognition.