John Sloan
Nude at Piano
1933

Name: Nude at Piano
Brand: John Sloan
Price: 1600 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

John Sloan, 'Nude at Piano', 1933, etching, edition 100, (only 85 printed), Morse 265. Signed, titled and annotated '100 proofs' in pencil. Signed and dated in the plate, lower right. A fine, richly inked impression, in warm black ink, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 1/2 to 4 inches). Slight toning at the sheet edges, otherwise in good condition. “A strong relationship between this etching and the painting of Renoir is to me quite noticeable. My own best results in painting of the nude are made with the same graphic intent” –John Sloan, from the catalogue Raisonné 'John Sloan's Prints', Peter Morse, Yale University Press, 1969. Impressions of this work are in the permanent collections of the following institutions: Delaware Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art. ABOUT THE ARTIST Dubbed the “dean of American artists,” John Sloan was one of the most influential members of the Ashcan School. Born in 1871 in Lock Haven, PA, he lived and worked in Philadelphia for most of his early career. Self-taught in etching, he additionally attended night classes at the Spring Garden Institute and enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts between 1892-1894, where he studied under Thomas Anshutz. Sloan began his career in commercial illustration in 1892 working for the Philadelphia Inquirer; later moving to the art department at the Philadelphia Press. A member of the ‘Philadelphia Five’, he frequently met with William Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shinn, and Robert Henri at Henri's studio. Henri had a profound influence on Sloan and encouraged him to pursue a fine art career. Sloan moved to New York City in 1904, then the nation’s cultural and intellectual center and the home of a flourishing art scene. He quickly came to love New York and described it as the “gayest of cities, the cosmopolitan palette where the spectrum changed in every side of the street.” Sloan’s subjects, as diverse and varied as the city itself, celebrated the lives of ordinary Americans in a way that was unprecedented in American art. He painted and etched New York’s great avenues and landmarks, the tenements of the Lower East Side, the sweeping vistas of the Manhattan skyline, the crowd of working-class men at McSorley’s Bar, the audience in the moving picture house, the election night festivities in Herald Square, and the trio of women drying their hair on a Sunday morning. Sloan’s images of New York provided a sprawling and comprehensive pictorial testament to urban life and culture. His student, Guy Péne du Bois aptly described him as the “historian of Sixth Avenue, Fourteenth Street, Union Square, and Madison Square.” Sloan was keenly aware of New York’s rapidly changing environment and acknowledged that “the fun of being a New York painter is that landmarks are torn down so rapidly that your canvases become historical records before the paint on them is dry.” Sloan’s works are particularly distinctive in the Ashcan genre due to his strong political commitments. In 1910, he joined the Socialist Party and in 1912 began creating illustrations for the popular socialist magazine ‘The Masses’. In spite of great economic prosperity, New York also presented the Ashcan artists with glaring inequalities between the classes. The city itself was physically divided by neighborhoods of grand mansions juxtaposed to poor immigrant communities and dilapidated slums. Sloan was undoubtedly influenced by the socially conscious art of the Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco. Though he never espoused propaganda, his socialist beliefs resonate in his urban scenes and deeply sympathetic treatment of lower-class subjects. An esteemed art instructor, Sloan had a profound influence on his students. Beginning in 1914, he taught at the Art Students League and later at the George Luks School of Art. After his death, the art critic Edward Allan Jewel wrote: “He is the artist’s guide, philosopher and friend. He is himself the artist through and through. And he brings to the profession of teaching a fervor so intense that it may be described as mystical. There are, to be sure, many liberal and independent minds. There are many artists, many teachers. There is only one John Sloan.” John Sloan left a lasting mark on 20th-century American art and an important legacy for succeeding generations of American artists. After his death, Life Magazine asserted that no living man had a greater influence in the American Art world. His works memorialize a vibrant era of New York’s history and continue to be collected by every major museum including, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Museum of American Art.

Creator:

John Sloan (1832-1932, American)

Creation Year:

1933

Dimensions:

Height: 6.88 in (17.48 cm)Width: 5.38 in (13.67 cm)

Medium:

Etching

Movement & Style:

Ashcan School

Period:

1930-1939