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Born in 1871 and raised in Philadelphia, John Sloan is best known for the urban realism championed by his fellow Ashcan school artists. This school emerged from a group of eight artists who sought to act against the strict rules about art of the conservative National Academy of Art. The outstanding art of this group of artists ended the conservative institution’s stranglehold on artistic production and won the art world’s recognition.[1]

Sloan became interested in drawing when he worked as a clerk at Porter & Coates bookstore in Philadelphia, where he spent time copying illustrations. He was a successful illustrator of newspapers and magazines from 1890 until 1904, when this type of work became outmoded. Seeking new opportunities, the artist moved to New York, where he illustrated a deluxe edition of satirical novels by Charles Paul de Kock, on view in this exhibition. Issued as a limited edition and sold by subscription only, the De Kock series was well-received. These works earned Sloan a reputation as an inventive illustrator and etcher. He continued to work as a printmaker, producing an independent series of scenes from everyday urban experience, entitled New York City Life, also included in this exhibition. In this series, Sloan spotlights New Yorkers in public and private spaces, materializing an ambivalent social commentary.

Throughout his artistic career, Sloan harnessed the nature of printmaking and its contrast of light and dark elements to illuminate scenes that might otherwise have remained in shadow.

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[1] Heather Campbell Coyle, Joyce K. Schiller, and John Sloan. John Sloan’s New York. (Wilmington: Delaware Art Museum, 2007). 181.