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As I walked the streets with my portfolio of samples, going from one publisher to another, I saw the life of the city really for the first time. All those years on the newspapers [in Philadelphia], I had worked most of the day and evening. I had neither time nor reason to see the neighborhood life of the city. Coming to New York and finding a place to live where I could observe the backyards and rooftops behind our attic studio—it was a new and exciting experience. Work on the de Kock illustrations [a series of illustrations for a deluxe edition of fifty novels by the French author Paul de Kock], although of a completely different place and period, had fired my creative imagination and had increased the technical skill in handling the etching needle. … New York had its human comedy and I felt like making pictures of this everyday world. At first I had some idea of social commentary based on Hogarth’s morality series or Daumier’s dramatis personae. But I found that this was not the kind of motivation which was most valid for my own personality and talent. … I saw neighborhoods of the city, and saw the kind of people who lived, worked and played in the Chelsea district, the Tenderloin around Sixth Avenue, then Fifth Avenue, the parks, etc. On the whole, when finding incidents that provided ideas for paintings, I was selecting bits of joy in human life. [1]
The New York City Life series included thirteen etchings in all. Sloan completed the first ten between 1905 and 1906 and added three more between 1910 and 1911. As a set, they demonstrate Sloan’s ability to narrate anecdotal aspects of urban life. Man Monkey, from 1905, depicts just the sort of scene Sloan might have observed on one of his neighborhood walks. In the center stands the “man monkey,” a street musician carrying an enormous drum and cymbal contraption. His back to the viewer, he turns his head and waves a cap in a mute appeal for donations. A tall hat covered with bells tops his head. Dancing along to the music, he kicks up his right leg in a clumsy jig. At left, a partner accompanies him on a hand organ while some passers-by pause to behold the spectacle. Children in the lower right giggle and tug on their mother’s hand as she attempts to pull them away. A carriage driver, clearly annoyed at this obstruction in traffic, pulls back tightly on the horse’s reins as the horse begins to shy. Despite the clear humor in the scene, there is also a sense of poignancy as the “man monkey” readily offers himself up as an object of amusement and ridicule in exchange for a few coins. Energetic curving lines and cross-hatching enliven the entire image and serve as evidence of Sloan’s facility with the etching medium.
Sloan later wrote, “In the side streets of the Chelsea and Greenwich Village districts, the one-man band with hand-organ accompanist furnished free entertainment to those who dropped no pennies. He worried the horse-drawn traffic of the time, but before many years the automobile and motor truck cleared him from the street.” [2]
Notes:
[1] John Sloan, quoted in Helen Farr Sloan, ed. John Sloan: New York Etchings (1905–1949) (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1978), vii–viii.
[2] Sloan, quoted in Sloan, John Sloan, 5.
ProvenanceFrom 1976
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by Barbara B. Millhouse in 1976 [1]
Notes:
[1] Reynolda House Annual Report, 1976-1977. See also memorandum of ownership by B. Millhouse, c. 1983, object file.
Exhibition History1976
Twentieth Century American Print Collection opening
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (12/3/1976)
2007
The Art of Dance
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (4/3/2007 - 9/16/2007)
2018
John Sloan: New York Etchings
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (6/12/2018-11/25/2018)
Published References
DepartmentAmerican Art
Man Monkey
Artist
John Sloan
(1871 - 1951)
Date1905
Mediumetching
DimensionsFrame: 16 1/4 x 18 in. (41.3 x 45.7 cm)
Image (plate): 4 15/16 x 6 15/16 in. (12.5 x 17.6 cm)
SignedJohn Sloan
Credit LineGift of Barbara B. Millhouse
Copyright© 2021 Delaware Art Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object number1976.2.1
DescriptionIn 1904, John Sloan married Anna “Dolly” Wall and the couple moved from Philadelphia to New York, settling in Chelsea. The neighborhood had a shabby bohemian quality that appealed to them. According to Sloan’s second wife, Helen Farr Sloan, the artist first conceived of the etching series called New York City Life as he pounded the pavement in search of illustration work in Manhattan. The artist later recalled:As I walked the streets with my portfolio of samples, going from one publisher to another, I saw the life of the city really for the first time. All those years on the newspapers [in Philadelphia], I had worked most of the day and evening. I had neither time nor reason to see the neighborhood life of the city. Coming to New York and finding a place to live where I could observe the backyards and rooftops behind our attic studio—it was a new and exciting experience. Work on the de Kock illustrations [a series of illustrations for a deluxe edition of fifty novels by the French author Paul de Kock], although of a completely different place and period, had fired my creative imagination and had increased the technical skill in handling the etching needle. … New York had its human comedy and I felt like making pictures of this everyday world. At first I had some idea of social commentary based on Hogarth’s morality series or Daumier’s dramatis personae. But I found that this was not the kind of motivation which was most valid for my own personality and talent. … I saw neighborhoods of the city, and saw the kind of people who lived, worked and played in the Chelsea district, the Tenderloin around Sixth Avenue, then Fifth Avenue, the parks, etc. On the whole, when finding incidents that provided ideas for paintings, I was selecting bits of joy in human life. [1]
The New York City Life series included thirteen etchings in all. Sloan completed the first ten between 1905 and 1906 and added three more between 1910 and 1911. As a set, they demonstrate Sloan’s ability to narrate anecdotal aspects of urban life. Man Monkey, from 1905, depicts just the sort of scene Sloan might have observed on one of his neighborhood walks. In the center stands the “man monkey,” a street musician carrying an enormous drum and cymbal contraption. His back to the viewer, he turns his head and waves a cap in a mute appeal for donations. A tall hat covered with bells tops his head. Dancing along to the music, he kicks up his right leg in a clumsy jig. At left, a partner accompanies him on a hand organ while some passers-by pause to behold the spectacle. Children in the lower right giggle and tug on their mother’s hand as she attempts to pull them away. A carriage driver, clearly annoyed at this obstruction in traffic, pulls back tightly on the horse’s reins as the horse begins to shy. Despite the clear humor in the scene, there is also a sense of poignancy as the “man monkey” readily offers himself up as an object of amusement and ridicule in exchange for a few coins. Energetic curving lines and cross-hatching enliven the entire image and serve as evidence of Sloan’s facility with the etching medium.
Sloan later wrote, “In the side streets of the Chelsea and Greenwich Village districts, the one-man band with hand-organ accompanist furnished free entertainment to those who dropped no pennies. He worried the horse-drawn traffic of the time, but before many years the automobile and motor truck cleared him from the street.” [2]
Notes:
[1] John Sloan, quoted in Helen Farr Sloan, ed. John Sloan: New York Etchings (1905–1949) (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1978), vii–viii.
[2] Sloan, quoted in Sloan, John Sloan, 5.
ProvenanceFrom 1976
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by Barbara B. Millhouse in 1976 [1]
Notes:
[1] Reynolda House Annual Report, 1976-1977. See also memorandum of ownership by B. Millhouse, c. 1983, object file.
Exhibition History1976
Twentieth Century American Print Collection opening
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (12/3/1976)
2007
The Art of Dance
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (4/3/2007 - 9/16/2007)
2018
John Sloan: New York Etchings
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (6/12/2018-11/25/2018)
Published References
Status
Not on viewCollections
July 9, 1980