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Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan
Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925 and Advertising in the Age of the
Ashcan Artists
November 28, 2007 - February 10,
2008
New York City's first
museum, the New-York Historical Society, is showcasing the dynamic works
of America's first modern painters -- "The Eight" and
the Ashcan School -- in Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan
Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925. The exhibition commemorates
the centennial of their groundbreaking 1908 show at New York's Macbeth Galleries
with more than seventy renowned canvasses. Featured among these are William
Glackens' celebrated 1905 painting At Mouquin's (Chez Mouquin), George
Bellows' famous boxers, Everett Shinn's lively theater and music hall scenes,
and John Sloan's 1912 tribute to McSorley's Bar, a landmark New York establishment
still operating on East 7th Street. (right: George Bellows, A
Day in June, 1913., Oil on canvas, 42 x 48 inches. Detroit Institute
of Arts, Lizzie Merrill Palmer Fund)
"This vibrant turn-of-the-century community of New
York artists, popularly known today as the Ashcan School, represents a pivotal
moment in the history of American art, and in the history of New York City
as a hotbed of cultural energy," said Dr. Linda S. Ferber, Vice President
and Museum Director. While best known today for depictions of the grittier
side of working class life, Life's Pleasures explores other aspects
of urban modernity that also captivated this group of progressive painters.
They were drawn to the urban sites of commercial and public leisure, where
New York's diverse population converged at the turn of the last century
to be entertained, to play, and to see and be seen. Their vivid paintings
capture the local color and social rituals associated with dining out; performances
at the theater, circus, and music hall; promenading in the city's parks;
playing at its beaches and waterfronts; and enjoying sporting events.
The group was formed in New York around the charismatic
teacher and painter Robert Henri. The circle (and the exhibition) includes
George Bellows, William Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shinn, John Sloan,
Maurice Prendergast, Guy Pène du Bois and others. Since many of them
had begun their careers as newspaper illustrators, they naturally found
their subjects in the everyday life of the city. In 1908, Henri invited
a group of these artists to show as "The Eight" in a controversial
exhibition at New York's Macbeth Galleries. Several of the works in that
acclaimed show are now on view at the N-YHS. The larger circle around "The
Eight" was later dubbed the "Ashcan School" when an art critic
caustically described their subject matter as "ash cans and girls hitching
up their skirts."
While the Ashcan artists are perhaps best remembered for
painting urban working-class life, Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists'
Brush with Leisure demonstrates that they also drew some of their richest
and best-known subjects from observing a broader spectrum of New Yorkers
at leisure and at play. The exhibition includes John Sloan's South Beach
Bathers, ca. 1907-8; Robert Henri's Salome, 1909; Everett Shinn's
Theatre Scene, 1906-7; George Bellows' Forty-two Kids, 1907;
George Luks' The Café Francis, c. 1906; George Bellows' Dempsey
and Firpo, 1924; and William Glackens' Hammerstein's Roof Garden,
c. 1901. Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925
was organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts under the curatorial direction
of James W. Tottis, Associate Curator of American Art.
The N-YHS has enriched the exhibition at this venue with
prints, photographs and ephemera from its renowned archives and collections
to offer visitors a rich perspective on the modern world that captivated
the Ashcan painters and their fellow New Yorkers. In addition, the installation
Advertising in the Age of the Ashcan Artists features forty rarely
displayed posters and advertising broadsides drawn from N-YHS collections.
The N-YHS museum curatorial team was led by Dr. Kimberly
Orcutt, Associate Curator of American Art, and Dr. Marilyn S. Kushner, Curator
and Head, Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections.
"The exhibition offers a fresh view of the Ashcan artists' work as
they depicted the leisure sites and activities that were, and are still,
an integral part of the urban experience," notes Dr. Orcutt.
A fully illustrated catalogue titled Life's Pleasures:
The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925 co-published
by the Detroit Institute of Arts and Merrell, accompanies the exhibition.
Authors of the thoughtful and informative essays include James W. Tottis,
Valerie Ann Leeds, Vincent DiGirolamo, Marianne Doezema, and Suzanne Smeaton,
with contributions from Michael E. Crane and Kirsten Olds. The catalogue
is available in the N-YHS Museum Store.
Public Programs
Public programs accompanying Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan
Artist's Brush with Leisure include:
-
- Curator-led Gallery Tours
on December 13, January 9 and January 17.
-
- Looking into the Ashcan: Ways of Seeing, a symposium featuring Katherine Manthorne, David Nasaw, Suzanne
Smeaton, James W. Tottis, Sylvia Yount and Rebecca Zurier on Saturday,
December 1, 2007 1:00 pm.
-
- LeRoy Neiman's Leisure Painting
featuring the artist discussing the ways he was influenced by the
Ashcan School with David Halle, former director of the LeRoy Neiman Center
for the study of American Society and Culture, UCLA, and N-YHS Vice President
Linda S. Ferber on Thursday, January 24, 2008 6:30 pm.
-
- Henri, Sloan and their New York
with , Vincent DiGirolamo, Valerie Ann Leeds, Kimberly Orcutt, and
Joyce K. Schiller on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 6:30 pm.
-
- New York Magic and Harry Houdini, featuring magician Bob Friedhoffer, George Schindler and Kenneth
Silverman on Thursday, February 7, 2008
- 6:30 pm.
Wall text and object labels from the exhibition Life's
Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925
-
- "It seems to me that an artist must be a spectator
of life; a reverential, enthusiastic, emotional spectator." -- George
Bellows, 1917
-
- In the early twentieth century, the charismatic painter
and teacher Robert Henri dismissed "art as art" and declared:
"I am interested in life." Around this rallying cry, a group
of New York artists, including George Bellows, William Glackens, George
Luks, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Guy Pène du Bois, and several others,
followed suit. Some were newspaper illustrators who easily found subjects
for paintings in the everyday life of the city. Others heeded Henri's call
for realism by observing their surroundings, whether in New York or in
Paris. In 1908, eight of these urban realists, led by Henri, organized
a sensational exhibition at New York's Macbeth Galleries. Several works
from that controversial show of "The Eight" are on view here.
These painters and the larger circle of Henri's disciples, later dubbed
the "Ashcan School," are remembered for painting the grittier
side of urban working-class life.
-
- At the same time, these artists also found some of their
richest and best-known subject matter by observing a broader spectrum of
New Yorkers at leisure and at play. The booming city that these artists
painted was changing rapidly. For some people, more modern labor conditions
spurred the growth of a middle class that enjoyed higher pay, shorter hours,
and leisure time. The concept of the weekend emerged, and young, single
workingwomen experimented with a newfound independence. The Ashcan artists
were drawn to the leisure sites of early twentieth-century life. Their
vivid paintings capture the local color and social rituals associated with
dining out and drinking; theatrical performances; sporting events; promenading
in the city's parks; and playing at its beaches and waterfronts. In Life's
Pleasures these works appear alongside photographs, posters, postcards,
sheet music, and ephemera from the New-York Historical Society collections,
to offer the visitor a rich perspective on the modern world that captivated
these progressive painters.
-
- Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure,
1895-1925 was organized by the Detroit Institute
of the Arts. Major funding for the exhibition at the New-York Historical
Society has been provided by Richard Gilder and Lois Chiles. Additional
generous support comes from Richard and Roberta Huber; the Barrie and Deedee
Wigmore Foundation; the Cordover Family Foundation; Sue Ann Weinberg; and
the Henry Luce Foundation. We are also grateful to Nancy Newcomb and John
Hargraves; Pamela and R. Scott Schafler; Hope and Grant Winthrop; and to
the LeRoy Neiman Foundation for helping to bring the exhibition and related
public programs to New York audiences.
-
-
-
- Dining Out
-
- The Ashcan artists painted from the modern urban life
they observed in and around New York City. They often depicted cafes, bars,
and restaurants, sometimes including friends and acquaintances among the
patrons. At the turn of the century, social life in New York was changing.
Dining, drinking, and socializing away from home became more widespread.
In the past respectable women could not appear in the public rooms of restaurants
without causing gossip, but this too changed as it became acceptable for
women to participate in public life.
-
- New York offered a range of dining options for every
pocketbook. Saloons like McSorley's Old Ale House formed the hub of the
workingman's leisure universe. Spectacular establishments like Churchill's
and Murray's Roman Gardens opened near Broadway and 42nd Street for theatergoers.
Other venues like the opulent Waldorf-Astoria offered more elegant amenities
for an elite clientele (as well as the exclusionary velvet rope at the
door).
- Paris was also an important city for the Ashcan artists
and they eagerly embraced the French Impressionist example of painting
café life. Back in New York, their social lives revolved around
Francophile establishments attracting a lively and eclectic clientele of
theatergoers, artists, critics, and writers, such as Mouquin's, Café
Francis, and Petitpas'.
-
- Murray's New York, Wine List,
1908
- Menu
- The New-York Historical Society Library Collections
-
- Beer tray, 1885-1915
- Metal
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections, Gift of Bella C. Landauer, 2002.1.3516
-
- Valentine Souvenir Company, New York
- "Churchill's," Broadway and Forty-Ninth
Street New York, undated
- Postcard
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections
-
- Unknown Photographer
- Untitled (Advertisement for Café Martin), 1910
- Reproductive photograph
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections, Leslie Dorsey Collection of
Pictorial Clippings
-
- Untitled (Café Martin),
1909
- Menu
- The New-York Historical Society Library Collections,
The Arnold Shircliffe Menu Collection
-
- Unknown Photographer
- Untitled (Murray's Restaurant,
34th St. & B'way), ca. 1908-20
- Gelatin silver photograph
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections, W. Johnson Quinn Collection
-
- Brown Brothers, New York
- Untitled (Murray's Restaurant interior, 34th St. &
B'way), ca. 1908-20
- Gelatin silver photograph
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections, W. Johnson Quinn Collection
-
- At the turn of the century new lavishly appointed restaurants
such as Café Martin, Murray's, and Churchill's opened on and near
Broadway for theater crowds. Dubbed "lobster palaces" for their
late-night lobster dinners, these establishments were known for opulent
décor and the notorious behavior of the patrons, as actors and chorus
girls mixed with businessmen.
-
- Unknown Photographer
- Kitchen of Waldorf Hotel,
1893
- Gelatin silver photograph
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections, W. Johnson Quinn Collection
-
- Tip Tray (Hotel Astor), 1890-1920
- Ceramic
- The New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bella C. Landauer,
2002.1.578
-
- Menu (Hotel Astor), 1909
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs, and Architectural Collections, Bella C. Landauer Collection
of Business and Advertising Ephemera
-
- The Indian Grill Room, Hotel Astor, New York, postmarked 1917
- Postcard
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections
-
- Drucker-Hilbert Co., New York
- Untitled (The "Peacock Alley" in the original
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel), ca. 1897
- Gelatin silver photograph
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections
-
- For the very wealthy, New York's glittering new hotels
were stages for display and monuments to the new social order. In 1893,
millionaire William Waldorf Astor built the Waldorf Hotel at Fifth Avenue
and 33rd Street. Some chroniclers suggest that Astor wanted to ruin the
view of his aunt, the famous Mrs. William Astor, who lived nearby and had
slighted his wife's social ambitions. The venerable lady was forced to
flee uptown. On the site of her former home, she and her son John Jacob
Astor IV built the Astoria Hotel. The two establishments merged to form
the Waldorf-Astoria (demolished in 1928 and rebuilt at its current location
at Park Avenue and 50th Street). The old Waldorf-Astoria was famous for
the "Peacock Alley," a public corridor where rich fashionables
promenaded on their way to private dining rooms. In 1904 William capitalized
on his success by building the Hotel Astor on Broadway and 44th Streets,
a hostelry with enormous public rooms and an elaborate roof garden that
boasted fountains, trees, grottoes, and waterfalls.
-
- Untitled (Steve Brodie's Saloon on the Bowery), ca. 1886-1900
- Newspaper clipping
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections, George T. Bagoe Collection,
Gift of Mrs. Elihu Spicer, 1960-61
-
- Unknown Photographer
- Untitled (Saloon on the Bowery),
1904-5
- Gelatin silver photograph
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections
-
- Turn-of-the-century saloons were the hub of the workingman's
social universe. Saloons often provided free lunches with lots of salty
food to encourage patrons to order drinks. The photograph immediately above
suggests the assorted characters and types that frequented these gathering
places; on the back is written "Chuck Connors, gang leader, 4th from
right." Steve Brodie became famous for jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge
in 1886 (though his claim was disputed). He used his notoriety to open
the popular watering hole that is seen in the newspaper clipping.
-
- Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931)
- Tenderloin at Night, 1899
- 2 minutes, 5 seconds
- Archival film from the collections of the Library of
Congress
-
- According to a contemporary writer, some of New York's
most notorious establishments were "the all-night restaurants patronized
by the after-theater crowd, which lie in the 'Tenderloin.'" The Tenderloin
district, a seedy neighborhood known for raucous bars and bordellos, extended
roughly from 23rd to 42nd Streets between Fifth and Seventh Avenues. The
criminal mischief carried out there inspired this comic film, in which
an unsuspecting customer enters a restaurant only to be drugged and robbed
by the patrons.
-
- Guy Pène du Bois (1884-1958)
- Café Madrid (Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Chester
Dale), 1926
- Oil on canvas
- Museum of Fine Arts, Saint Petersburg, Florida, Bequest
of John Hinkle 1990.8
-
- Guy Pène du Bois was a student of Henri's who
also exercised his considerable skills as a reporter, an illustrator, and
a critic. He was an astute observer of social types known for satirical
images of the new moneyed class. This double portrait shows du Bois' principal
benefactor, collector Chester Dale, dining with his wife Maude at the Café
Madrid. Du Bois painted effective likenesses of the collector and his spouse;
however, it has been suggested that the painting also reflects the artist's
conflicted relationship with his patrons. Du Bois once commented that Dale's
"glories have to be in things money can buy him for they are absolutely
not in him." Du Bois' critical attitude may be reflected in the rigid
postures of the couple and their vapid, abstracted expressions.
-
- Guy Pène du Bois (1884-1958)
- Café d'Harcourt, ca.
1905-6
- Oil on canvas board
- Private Collection
-
- Guy Pène du Bois (1884-1958)
- At the Table, 1905
- Oil on board
- Private Collection
-
- Like many of his generation, du Bois studied in New York
with the influential American realist Robert Henri, who encouraged bold,
free brushwork and exhorted his students to find their subjects in the
life around them. Du Bois took these lessons to Paris with him in 1905,
where he sketched scenes in cafés that also evoke earlier French
realist work. From his quick studies came small vigorous paintings like
these; dark and moody in their palette, they convey a sense of Bohemian
café life. Du Bois also used modernist compositional devices, cropping
the image of the table in one painting, and in the other, using the forms
of brightly lit tabletops to create a deep recession into space.
-
- William Glackens (1870-1938)
- At Mouquin's (Chez Mouquin),
1905
- Oil on canvas
- The Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art
Collection, 1925.295
-
- Everett Shinn (1876-1953)
- Mouquin's, 1904
- Pastel and pencil on cardboard
- Collection of The Newark Museum, Purchase 1949, Arthur
Egner Memorial Fund
-
- Tray (Mouquin's Restaurant),
ca. 1905
- Metal
- Collection of Ken Ratner, New York
-
- Mouquin's was a popular New York café and a frequent
destination for the Ashcan artists and their friends. Shinn's pastel shows
the exterior of the restaurant, located at Sixth Avenue and 28th Street
in the theater district known as the Tenderloin. The entrance, with its
lights and colorful canopy, offers an inviting respite to passersby on
a wet winter night.
-
- Glackens' vibrant painting of the interior evokes the
spectacle of Parisian café scenes by the French realist painters
Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet. The well-dressed man in the painting is
James B. Moore, a lawyer and bon vivant. His fashionable companion is Jeanne
Louise Mouquin, wife of Henri Mouquin, the café's proprietor. Glackens
may have originally intended to include him in the painting, but perhaps
found him too busy with his duties. A mirror behind Moore and Mme. Mouquin
reflects the crowded restaurant as well as images of the artist's wife,
Edith Glackens, and the art critic Charles Fitzgerald, who sit nearby.
At Mouquin's was included in the controversial 1908 exhibition of "The
Eight" at the Macbeth Galleries, where the painting earned both praise
for its realism and criticism for what was thought to be its vulgar emphasis
on drinking.
-
- Charles Webster Hawthorne (1872-1930)
- The Story (The Diners; Pleasures of the Table), ca. 1898-99
- Oil on canvas
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C., Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966 (HMSG 66.2410)
-
- Though Hawthorne was not closely associated with the
Ashcan artists, the dark, tenebrous palette, looming figures, and splendid
still life in The Story were inspired by realist ambitions. Lively conversation
and witty repartee were (and still are) an important part of urban leisure.
The paintings of the Ashcan artists and many of their contemporaries captured
social encounters in bars and restaurants that resonate with the kind of
banter, argument, and storytelling that is seen between these two well-dressed
but roguish-looking characters, whose indulgence in the contents of the
silver punchbowl has probably fueled their conversation.
-
- Robert Henri (1865-1929)
- Portrait of George Luks,
1904
- Oil on canvas
- National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
-
- Henri painted this splendid portrait of his friend and
fellow artist George Luks in a single sitting in January 1904. This ambitious
painting by the acknowledged leader of the New York realists evokes the
circle's admiration for seventeenth-century Spanish and Dutch portraits
with its sober palette, powerful figure, and fluent brushwork. Henri may
have provided the gray painter's smock worn over Luks' suit to suggest
-- like the cigarette -- a bohemian milieu and a sense of informality,
despite the painting's grand scale. While Henri worked, Luks was at leisure,
leaning against a frame, his relaxed posture and genial expression attesting
to the two artists' professional and social camaraderie. Henri, Luks, and
their colleagues shared both work and play, leading them to paint their
own leisure activities, and those of others.
-
- Edward Hopper (1882-1967)
- Dandy Seated at a Café Table, 1906-7
- Watercolor
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Josephine N.
Hopper Bequest
-
- Edward Hopper studied with Robert Henri at the New York
School of Art. There he learned to be what Hopper himself called a "sketch
hunter," wandering the city in search of his subjects. He continued
this practice when he traveled to Paris in 1906-7, 1909, and 1910. It was
probably there that he rendered this small caricature of a fashionably
dressed and carefully posed dandy enjoying a drink.
-
- George Luks (1867-1933)
- The Café Francis,
ca. 1906
- Oil on canvas
- The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio,
Museum Purchase
- Frame Loan Courtesy of Eli Wilner & Company
-
- Luks evoked the Bohemian pleasures of nightlife in this
daring painting that shows James B. Moore, lawyer and owner of the Café
Francis, attending to one of the young companions whom he referred to as
his "daughters." Moore is perhaps too solicitously removing the
young woman's wrap, revealing her abundant physical charms. Glamorously
attired in feathers and a low-cut dress, her inviting smile, along with
the glimpse of a crowd and musician in the background, suggest an evening
of frivolity to come.
-
- The Café Francis was advertised as "New York's
Most Popular Resort of New Bohemia" until it closed in 1908. The establishment
competed with Mouquin's to draw the artistic and literary crowd (though
it must have been a friendly competition, since Moore is also present in
Glackens' painting At Mouquin's, hanging nearby). Moore's café served
as a social hub for the urban realist painters who were also dubbed the
"Café Francis School."
-
- George Luks (1867-1933)
- Pedro, ca. 1920
- Oil on canvas
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. William
Preston Harrison Collection
-
- As one of the best-known figures among the Ashcan artists
and a member of "The Eight," Luks personally embodied some of
the group's most controversial and celebrated Bohemian traits. He was known
as a voluble storyteller, a hard drinker, and an all-around boisterous
character. As a painter, Luks concentrated on bold images of New York street
life, painted with thick, broad strokes. This slightly dangerous-looking
subject, smoking and drinking in a café, boldly confronts the viewer
from beneath the brim of his hat. The guitar suggests that he may be a
performer in costume, adding a theatrical touch to the scene.
-
- Alfred Maurer (1868-1932)
- Café in Paris, ca.
1901
- Oil on canvas
- Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York
-
- American Alfred Maurer spent nearly fifteen years in
Paris, and during his first years there he created dark-toned and somewhat
mysterious scenes, often of solitary women against the backdrop of Parisian
leisure sites. The artist abruptly cropped the image at the right, making
it unclear whether the seated woman is alone or with a companion. The crowd
of patrons seen in the distance is set in contrast to the empty tables
in the foreground, only intensifying her isolation.
-
- While abroad, Maurer continued to show his works in the
United States, where his realist works were admired by his colleagues among
the Ashcan artists. He remained in contact with Henri and Glackens, and
participated with them and Sloan in a New York group exhibition in 1901.
-
- Alfred Maurer (1868-1932)
- Le Bal Bullier, ca. 1901-3
- Oil on canvas
- Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts,
SC 1951:283
-
- Ashcan artists who went to Paris eagerly embraced the
city's famous public social life. In this painting Maurer captured the
lively atmosphere of a popular dance hall in the Latin Quarter. Maurer's
dark, painterly style, use of silhouettes, and his abrupt cropping of the
composition are conventions associated with realism, as well as with the
snapshot quality of modern subjects. While the figures on the right are
engaged in a lively dance, those on the left wander away with disaffected
expressions conveying an almost cinematic impression, as if the viewer
is witnessing both the exhilaration of the dance, and the emotional letdown
afterward.
-
- Maurice Prendergast (1858-1924)
- The Band Concert, Luxembourg Gardens, 1893
- Watercolor and pencil on paper
- Ambassador and Mrs. Ronald Weiser
-
- Prendergast was one of the first Americans to paint with
the heightened palette and decorative rhythms associated with Post-Impressionism.
Studying in Paris between 1891 and 1894, he was inspired by French avant-garde
painters to create street subjects like this one. Prendergast's delicate
watercolor offers a glimpse of one of the city's famous parks where fashionably
dressed men and women enjoy conversation and drinks while listening to
music. The musicians are a silhouette in the distance.
-
- Though Prendergast's paintings were very different in
style from those of his Ashcan School contemporaries, they admired his
modern urban subjects. Prendergast was invited to participate in the controversial
1908 New York exhibition of "The Eight," forever associating
him with that notorious event.
-
- John Sloan (1871-1951)
- McSorley's Bar, 1912
- Oil on canvas
- Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase
-
- Everett Shinn (1876-1953)
- The Bar at McSorley's, 1908
- Watercolor, gouache, and pencil on paper
- Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene A. Gargaro, Jr.
-
- McSorley's Old Ale House, an Irish working-class bar
on East Seventh Street, is known as the city's oldest continuously operating
saloon, established in 1854 and still open today. It was famous for a floor
strewn with sawdust, no stools, and walls papered with theater memorabilia,
sporting prints, and programs. The proprietor, John McSorley, established
a quiet, congenial, and exclusively male environment that attracted men
of varied backgrounds and classes. This social latitude is signaled by
the different types of clothing worn by the patrons in these two images.
Sloan's figures can be identified as working-class men while Shinn's are
more refined in dress.
-
- McSorley's was a popular haunt of the Ashcan artists,
and Sloan fondly referred to the bar as the "old standby." He
took special care with this painting, making at least six sketches to develop
the composition. Both his painting and Shinn's watercolor convey the place's
all-male congeniality.
-
- John Sloan (1871-1951)
- Yeats at Petitpas', 1910
- Oil on canvas
- Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Museum Purchase,
Gallery Fund (32.9)
-
- Sloan routinely depicted the places he frequented and
knew best. This lively group portrait demonstrates his strong affection
for Petitpas', a boarding house run by three French sisters from Brittany.
Sloan's close friend John Butler Yeats (father of poet William Butler Yeats)
boarded there and routinely held court. Sloan is furthest to the right,
and Yeats is the bearded figure on the left. Seated to his right is biographer
and literary historian Van Wyck Brooks. Sloan's wife Dolly faces us in
a yellow dress. The jovial gathering of writers, painters, and poets in
an informal setting evokes the pleasures of dining and the Bohemian life.
-
-
- Entertainment: Fine and Performing Arts
-
- At the turn of the twentieth century, New Yorkers enjoyed
an increasing array of entertainment options away from home, ranging from
more refined cultural venues such as the theater and art galleries, to
popular entertainments like vaudeville, music halls, and movie houses.
Amusements like vaudeville that had been off limits to decent women became
more respectable, appealing to both working- and middle-class audiences.
Crowds mingled in theaters and music halls and on roof gardens that provided
light entertainment and cool breezes during the summer. The bright lights
and costumes of the circus and carnival offered popular entertainment,
as well as a rich source of imagery for artists.
-
- The Ashcan artists were keenly interested in both the
audiences on display and the performers on stage that comprised these lively
spectacles of commercial leisure. They engaged in amateur theatricals themselves
and socialized with many performers, sometimes portraying the popular celebrities
of the day. They also performed for their own patrons in gallery and exhibition
settings.
-
- Unknown Photographer
- Untitled (Star Theatre),
1883-1901
- Toned gelatin silver photograph
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections
-
- The New York Edison Company Photographic Bureau
- Untitled (Night view of Broadway - north of 47th Street), 1917
- Gelatin silver photograph
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections, Photo Courtesy of Con Edison
-
- Untitled (Orpheum Music Hall),
1904
- Flyer
- The New-York Historical Society, Department of Prints,
Photographs and Architectural Collections, Bella C. Landauer Collection
of Business and Advertising Ephemera
-
- Unknown Artist
- Untitled (Mutt and Jeff),
undated
- Offset lithograph
- The New-York Historical Society, Photographs and Architectural
Collections, Bella C. Landauer Collection of Business and Advertising Ephemera
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- Vaudeville, the variety acts that delighted both working-
and middle-class audiences, thrived in turn-of-the-century New York. Promoters
assured audiences that their "high class" performances were entirely
respectable, as is seen in the advertisements here. However, vaudeville
would ultimately be supplanted as popular entertainment by moving pictures.
As films became longer and more elaborate, entrepreneurs like Marcus Loew
built larger, more luxurious theaters that looked like "legitimate"
playhouses, rather than the crowded, shabby storefronts where short films
were presented early on.
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- Live theater also enjoyed a strong following in New York.
The Star Theater at the corner of 13th Street and Broadway presented traditional
drama and opera in German and later in English. Ironically, the demolition
of this famous legitimate playhouse in 1901 was recorded in time-lapse
photography to create a famous short film that compressed the month-long
process to just two minutes.
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- American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, New York
- The Boys Think They Have One on Foxy Grandpa, But
He Fools Them, 1902
- 1 minute, 10 seconds
- Archival film from the collections of the Library of
Congress
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- In the early twentieth century vaudeville still thrived
in New York, but was gradually surpassed by movies as the most popular
form of commercial entertainment. This comic film demonstrates the literal
transition of a theatrical vaudeville act into a moving picture, as "Foxy
Grandpa" shows up his young challengers with his playing and dancing.
Urban audiences for early short films were broad and a lack of English
was no barrier to enjoying these silent pictures.
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