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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. Girl and Beggar, from 1910, depicts just the sort of scene Sloan might have observed on one of his neighborhood walks. In the image, which the artist presents as if he observed it from the street level, two figures occupy space on a city sidewalk in front of a darkened store. A young woman, stylishly dressed in a long coat and a feathered hat, stands with her hand placed jauntily on her hip. Her fair hair curls out from under her hat in an elaborate wave. Her head is turned as if a sound behind her has just attracted her attention. There is a hint of an expectant smile on her face. Next to her, a man with a wooden leg sits on the cold pavement. Compared to the young woman, he is a pathetic figure. He wears a bowler hat and a slouchy coat, and he pulls the edges of the coat together in an attempt to keep warm. Next to him lies a box, open for donations. He has turned his face in the same direction as the woman, but the expression he wears is mournful and pitiable. What has attracted their attention? Is it perhaps a potential customer? For certainly the woman is a prostitute, standing expectantly on the street at night. And surely the poor crippled man is hoping for a few coins. Both use their bodies to attract attention—she for business, he for sympathy. Which of the two figures will be successful? It is also interesting to speculate about the relationship between the two figures, located in such close proximity to each other. Before the sound outside our field of view attracted their attention, were they conversing in a companionable manner or arguing over their rights to that particular territory? Are they friends, rivals, or both? Sloan, ever the storyteller, leaves the truth unresolved.
Sloan often took prostitutes and women as sex objects in general as subjects for both his prints and his paintings, walking the streets at night and peering through windows to gather visual materials. The artist later wrote, “Twenty-third Street, a winter night, and two haunters of the sidewalk. ‘Putting the Best Foot Forward,’ a drawing made for Harper’s Weekly, was a variant on this theme.” [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, 16. Rachel Schreiber points out that an image of that title appeared in the June 1915 issue of The Masses; it is possible that Sloan misattributed the publication to which he submitted the etching. See Rachel Schreiber, “Before Their Makers and Their Judges: Prostitutes and White Slaves in the Political Cartoons of ‘The Masses’ (New York, 1911–1917),” Feminist Studies 35, no. 1 (Spring 2009), 161–193.
ProvenanceEstate of Helen Farr Sloan
To 2009
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, acquired from the estate of Helen Farr Sloan
From 2009
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by the Delaware Art Museum on September 17th, 2009
Notes:
[1] Deed of Gift, object file.
[2] See note 1.
[3] Accession Record and Deed of Gift, object file.
Exhibition History2018
John Sloan: New York Etchings
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (6/12/2018-11/25/2018)
Published References
DepartmentAmerican Art
Girl and Beggar
Artist
John Sloan
(1871 - 1951)
Date1910
Mediumetching on paper
DimensionsPaper (irregular): 9 1/8 x 12 5/8 in. (23.2 x 32.1 cm)
Image: 4 7/16 x 5 15/16 in. (11.3 x 15.1 cm)
Frame: 16 1/4 x 17 1/8 in. (41.3 x 43.5 cm)
SignedJohn Sloan
Credit LineGift of the Estate of Helen Farr Sloan, Courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum
Copyright© 2021 Delaware Art Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object number2009.2.2
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. Girl and Beggar, from 1910, depicts just the sort of scene Sloan might have observed on one of his neighborhood walks. In the image, which the artist presents as if he observed it from the street level, two figures occupy space on a city sidewalk in front of a darkened store. A young woman, stylishly dressed in a long coat and a feathered hat, stands with her hand placed jauntily on her hip. Her fair hair curls out from under her hat in an elaborate wave. Her head is turned as if a sound behind her has just attracted her attention. There is a hint of an expectant smile on her face. Next to her, a man with a wooden leg sits on the cold pavement. Compared to the young woman, he is a pathetic figure. He wears a bowler hat and a slouchy coat, and he pulls the edges of the coat together in an attempt to keep warm. Next to him lies a box, open for donations. He has turned his face in the same direction as the woman, but the expression he wears is mournful and pitiable. What has attracted their attention? Is it perhaps a potential customer? For certainly the woman is a prostitute, standing expectantly on the street at night. And surely the poor crippled man is hoping for a few coins. Both use their bodies to attract attention—she for business, he for sympathy. Which of the two figures will be successful? It is also interesting to speculate about the relationship between the two figures, located in such close proximity to each other. Before the sound outside our field of view attracted their attention, were they conversing in a companionable manner or arguing over their rights to that particular territory? Are they friends, rivals, or both? Sloan, ever the storyteller, leaves the truth unresolved.
Sloan often took prostitutes and women as sex objects in general as subjects for both his prints and his paintings, walking the streets at night and peering through windows to gather visual materials. The artist later wrote, “Twenty-third Street, a winter night, and two haunters of the sidewalk. ‘Putting the Best Foot Forward,’ a drawing made for Harper’s Weekly, was a variant on this theme.” [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, 16. Rachel Schreiber points out that an image of that title appeared in the June 1915 issue of The Masses; it is possible that Sloan misattributed the publication to which he submitted the etching. See Rachel Schreiber, “Before Their Makers and Their Judges: Prostitutes and White Slaves in the Political Cartoons of ‘The Masses’ (New York, 1911–1917),” Feminist Studies 35, no. 1 (Spring 2009), 161–193.
ProvenanceEstate of Helen Farr Sloan
To 2009
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, acquired from the estate of Helen Farr Sloan
From 2009
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by the Delaware Art Museum on September 17th, 2009
Notes:
[1] Deed of Gift, object file.
[2] See note 1.
[3] Accession Record and Deed of Gift, object file.
Exhibition History2018
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