Life’s Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925
New York Historical Society
Nov. 28, 2007 - Feb. 10, 2008
John Sloan's New York
Museum of the City of New York
Nov. 15, 2007 - March 23, 2008
On either side of Central Park, two institutions devoted to New York City history are showing work by the Ashcan School. Appropriately enough, these early 20th Century realists loved the City -- even its garbage cans.
The two shows nicely coincide with the centenary of a gallery show called "The Eight" that put these artists on the map. A few of the paintings from that exhibit are among the 80 or so oils on display at the New York Historical Society (one stop on a tour organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts).
Through contemporary eyes it's hard to believe it, but the paintings were once controversial. To some extent, "The Eight" was the "Sensation" of its day. Most shocking was George Bellows' depiction of a gang of boys swimming nude in the East River ("Forty-Two Kids," 1907). It wasn't that they were without clothing -- but because they were rough and tumble immigrants.
While the Ash Can artists did receive formal training, this "school" was really set in opposition to the established academic art world. At the turn of the century, this establishment was embodied by the National Academy of Design -- founded by major figures in that previous American painting collective -- the Hudson River School. So, instead of romantic un-peopled vistas, the Ashcan painters give you 42 ragamuffins splashing in the East River. Decidedly downriver.
Four of the Eight -- John Sloan, George Luks, Everett Shinn and William Glackens -- were newspaper illustrators, an outlook that informed their in-the-streets brand of realism. And, along with the group's father figure, Robert Henri, they all came to New York from Philadelphia -- inspiring a clannishness and outsider's enthusiasm for their new home.
Their paintings weren't all grit. And, despite their sympathy for radical politics, they weren't polemical. In fact, the Ash Can moniker stemmed from an negative review by the radical newspaper The Masses which felt their art too vulgar, or not politically serious enough. (Although Sloan for one did illustrations for the paper.)
The Ashcan outlook was more Walt Whitman than Karl Marx. Henri, who organized "The Eight," gave Sloan a copy of "Leaves of Grass" soon after the two first met.
In fact, much of paintings in "Life's Pleasures," as the title would suggest, are prosaic, even bourgeois. In fact, the main thrust of the show is to depict the rise of leisure and the middle class in early 20th Century -- dining, entertainment, parks, beaches and sports. Woo fun!
It's a nice slice of historic New York City -- from Sloan's depictions of McSorley's ale house (these guys liked to eat and drink) to Madison Park (with the recently constructed Flatiron building in the background) to Luk's Highbridge Park to, one of my favorites, Glackens' "Skating Rink, New York City," which shows rollerskating circa 1906 -- who knew?
Supporting this historic narrative, there are a few small displays of historical materials such as a musical score with an cover illustrating Coney Island and a Thomas Edison film depicting a Tenderloin district restaurant. But for the most part, the paintings speak for themselves.
Intriguingly, there are several paintings that depict one very central important leisure activity -- art. Well, leisure for some and work for others. And it's this exact tension that's on display in Luks' "Artist and His Patron" (1905), a dark canvas that evinces angst in a way that prefigures German Expressionism. There's also Guy Pène Du Bois' "Chanticleer" (1922), which pokes fun at a foppish museum visitor making the rounds. And best of all is Pène Du Bois' "Juliana Force at the Whitney Studio Club" (1922) a reverse portrait of an elegantly attired Ms. Force as she examines a painting that is signed by the artist. (Originally the social secretary for Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Juliana Force largely created and served as the first director of the Whitney Museum, which was founded in 1930, a year after the MoMA.)
Not a few of the paintings have a strong Impressionist influence (Henri trained in France). Glackens, especially, can be seen as a very skillful Manet imitator. Degas and Frans Hals are other acknowledged influences. I wouldn't be surprised if Bellows was familiar with the work of the French-trained American realist Thomas Eakins, especially his "The Swimming Hole" (1884-5).
A small exhibit of Sloan's etchings at Museum of the City of New York (organized by the Delaware Art Museum) shows various intimate, and sometimes sentimental, city scenes. Evident is the artist's humor and lusty appreciation for the female form. Clearly he enjoyed sketching working-class women, whether gathered under the 6th Ave. El in Greenwich Village or observed mid-undress through a tenement window.
Maybe the coolest image in either show is Sloan's etching "Arch Conspirators" (1917), which depicts a famous mid-winter party held on the roof the Washington Square Arch involving, among others, Sloan and Marcel Duchamp. According to accounts, the group drew up a document for Greenwich Village to succeed from the United States. Perhaps, given the year, they were thinking of certain events in Russia.
Another revolution happened three years prior to the party as Duchamp's abstract "Nude Descending a Staircase" was the sensation of the famous Armory Show, ushering in modernism to the U.S.
While the Armory Show was certainly more radical than "The Eight," the latter paved the way, leading to the formation of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, which, in turn, organized the Armory Show.
In Sloan's "Arch Conspirators" we see that these artists were kindred spirits -- in opposition to orthodoxy and embracing life in all its forms (even its ashcans, or urinals).
As long as these shows are up, for the price of admission at one museum, you can get into the other for free (and it's not even necessary to go on the same day). You'll save a dollar if you head do the East Side first.
Notes:
Exhibit Web content: John Sloan's New York.
The New York Times: "...the Ashcan spirit returned in Abstract Expressionism, a movement that favored visceral action over aesthetic refinement."
The Guardian: "...they were supposed to be manly first and artists second. They were hard-living fellows."
Walk Off the Big Apple's Ashcan walking tour: "I've pulled together a self-guided stroll that stops at some of the important places for the Ashcan artists. The main purpose, however, is to wind up at the ancient McSorley's Old Ale House at 15 East 7th Street."
