| In 1904 John Sloan moved from his hometown of Philadelphia to New York City. There Sloan began to meticulously detail every level of city life with both the realism characteristic of the Ashcan artists and a levity all his own. The denizens of museums, parks, shops, bars, alleys and rooftops all provided Sloan with the kind of genre scenes he liked to portray, often tinged with humor and wit, even when the subject matter was intrinsically not. Whatever topic the artist approached, be it the high society elite, bohemian artist friends, or beggars and women of dubious reputations, each was rendered with an intimacy and playfulness that allowed onlookers a slice of John Sloan’s own personal New York City experience. As the artist himself said: “I saw the everyday life of the people, and on the whole I picked out bits of joy in human life for my subject matter.” |
