EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

John Sloan and his Ashcan Paintings

I mentioned a month ago that I would be reviewing Michael Lobel’s article in the Art Bulletin on John Sloan, the Ashcan artist of early twentieth-century New York.¹ In it he looks at half a dozen works by Sloan between 1907 and 1910 to demonstrate that however realistic the street scenes look they are really allegories about art. The hairdresser applying color to her customer’s hair in the window (above) not only acts like an artist applying paint to canvas but physically resembles Sloan as well with her wire-rim specs and stub nose. The building’s façade plastered with advertising boards echoes, he writes, how gallery walls were hung with pictures during the same period. A signboard promoting Ung Low Chop Suey is really a pun, he reveals, on how artists wanted their pictures hung low, not up near the ceiling where they could not be seen. Even a hat encircled with colorful flowers in the lower right corner intentionally resembles a palette in both shape and color.

In another painting entitled Election Night revelers in the streets are waiting to hear the election’s results, another reportorial scene filled with seemingly truthful details. Once again, he writes, a man in black facing into the canvas with a raised hand and a long, thin stick tipped with feathers – is the artist painting the canvas with a paintbrush. He notes that there is a long tradition in Western of art of figures facing into the canvas without realizing that many more of them than he realizes are “artists” in disguise, just like the ones he sees in Sloan’s work. Nevertheless, everything he writes about Sloan’s pictures is spot on. If only there were more scholars like him. His article’s well worth reading in full but, if you’re short of time, try our short illustrated synopsis on the site.  

1. Michael Lobel, "John Sloan: Figuring the Painter in the Crowd", Art Bulletin 93, Sept. 2011, pp. 345-68