John Sloan
born Aug. 2, 1871, Lock Haven, Pa., U.S.
died Sept. 7, 1951, Hanover, N.H.
American painter, etcher and lithographer, cartoonist, and illustrator,
known for the vitality of hisdepictions of everyday life in New York City
in the early 20th century.
Sloan was a commercial newspaper artist in Philadelphia, where he studied
with Robert Henri. He followed Henri to New York, where in 1908 Henri,
Sloan, and six others exhibited together as “The Eight.” Sloan's realistic
paintings of urban genre gave rise to the epithet “Ashcan School.” For
most of his life Sloan taught intermittently and, interested in social
reform, did illustrations for the socialist periodical The Masses. In 1939
he published The Gist of Art.
His best period was from 1900 to 1920. In works such as “Sunday, Women
Drying Their Hair” (1912); “McSorley's Bar” (1912); and “Backyards,
Greenwich Village” (1914), he drew his inspiration directly from life,
from the warm, pungent humanity of the New York scene. They are usually
sympathetic portrayals of working men and women. More rarely his works
evoke a mood of romantic melancholy, as in the “Wake of the Ferry” (1907).
Occasionally, as in “Fifth Avenue Critics,” Sloan imparted a sharp,
satiric note into his work. Late in life Sloan turned back to the Art
Nouveau motifswhich had characterized his early work.
