Skip to main content
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. Turning Out the Light, from 1905, depicts just the sort of scene Sloan might have observed from his apartment window. In the scene, a woman dressed in a nightgown kneels on a bed and reaches up to a sconce on the wall to turn off the light before lying down. Sloan loads the image with an erotic charge as, at the same time, the woman looks over her shoulder and locks eyes with the man who shares her bed. The man is almost lost in the shadows that Sloan creates with vigorous cross-hatching, but the viewer can just make out a figure whose arms are folded behind his head. With just a few well-chosen poses and gazes, Sloan suggests the anticipation that these two figures feel in the moment.
The erotic nature of this image proved controversial. In 1906, Sloan was invited by the American Water Color Society to exhibit ten etchings. When he arrived at the gallery, he realized that four pieces had been pulled from the show. In a diary entry, Sloan wrote, “In the afternoon four etchings of the set which had been invited by Mr. Mielatz … were returned to me. Great surprise as he had even furnished the frames. In the evening I attended the ‘stag’ Private View, saw Mielatz and asked for an explanation. He said other members of the committee had thought these four were rather ‘too vulgar’ for a public exhibition. I asked to be introduced to some of these sensitive souls but he would not comply. I was madder than I can describe. Asked to have the remaining six taken down but this is against the rules.” [2] Accusations of vulgarity in his work would continue to haunt Sloan for years.
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 Bruce St. John, John Sloan (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 32.
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)
2018
John Sloan: New York Etchings
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (6/12/2018-11/25/2018)
Published ReferencesSchiller, Joyce K. Woman's World, 1880-1920: From Object to Subject Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, 2000: 14.
DepartmentAmerican Art
Turning Out the Light
Artist
John Sloan
(1871 - 1951)
Date1905
Mediumetching
DimensionsFrame: 16 1/4 x 18 in. (41.3 x 45.7 cm)
Image: 5 x 7 in. (12.7 x 17.8 cm)
SignedJohn Sloan
Credit LineGift of Barbara B. Millhouse
Copyright© 2021 Delaware Art Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object number1976.2.5
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. Turning Out the Light, from 1905, depicts just the sort of scene Sloan might have observed from his apartment window. In the scene, a woman dressed in a nightgown kneels on a bed and reaches up to a sconce on the wall to turn off the light before lying down. Sloan loads the image with an erotic charge as, at the same time, the woman looks over her shoulder and locks eyes with the man who shares her bed. The man is almost lost in the shadows that Sloan creates with vigorous cross-hatching, but the viewer can just make out a figure whose arms are folded behind his head. With just a few well-chosen poses and gazes, Sloan suggests the anticipation that these two figures feel in the moment.
The erotic nature of this image proved controversial. In 1906, Sloan was invited by the American Water Color Society to exhibit ten etchings. When he arrived at the gallery, he realized that four pieces had been pulled from the show. In a diary entry, Sloan wrote, “In the afternoon four etchings of the set which had been invited by Mr. Mielatz … were returned to me. Great surprise as he had even furnished the frames. In the evening I attended the ‘stag’ Private View, saw Mielatz and asked for an explanation. He said other members of the committee had thought these four were rather ‘too vulgar’ for a public exhibition. I asked to be introduced to some of these sensitive souls but he would not comply. I was madder than I can describe. Asked to have the remaining six taken down but this is against the rules.” [2] Accusations of vulgarity in his work would continue to haunt Sloan for years.
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 Bruce St. John, John Sloan (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 32.
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)
2018
John Sloan: New York Etchings
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (6/12/2018-11/25/2018)
Published ReferencesSchiller, Joyce K. Woman's World, 1880-1920: From Object to Subject Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, 2000: 14.
Status
Not on viewJuly 9, 1980