Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan Artists and Their New York

New York at the turn of the century was a city in transition. At the junction of steamship lines from Europe and railroads from the interior, it was the hub of shipping, manufacturing, and corporate activity, as well as the leading port of entry for immigrants. This was the New York of the Ashcan artists. Fascinated with the contrasts and nuances of urban change, George Bellows, William Glackens, Robert Henri, George Luks, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan sought out the human drama of New York's streets - from life in immigrant neighborhoods, backlot football games, boxing matches, and bars to city parks where bums shared space with fashionably dressed young women. If their work contrasted with the genteel subjects typical of art in the 1890s, their subjects were familiar territory to those who turned to contemporary newspaper articles, illustrated magazines, even the vaudeville stage, interpretations of contemporary life. Like journalists, the Ashcan artists captured the breaking trends of their day.
This book presents more than 100 paintings, drawings, and prints by the six artists whose earthy, urban subjects led critics to call them the "Ashcan School," along with reproductions of contemporary postcards, sheet music, advertisements, newspaper clippings, and magazine illustrations that show how clearly the artists reflected the current events of their times. The authors discuss the relationship between the artworks and changing social concerns and explain meanings that contemporary viewers understood but that are lost to us today. Robert Snyder examines the complex geographic and social transformations that made New York the symbol of early twentieth-century America. Rebecca Zurier describes the lives of the six artists, tracing the way each forged a distinctive vision that related art to "real life." Together Zurier and Snyder link the work of the Ashcan artists to pressing social concerns of the time - from the changes in urban geography that transformed the nature of neighborhoods and city parks to the changing roles of men and women. Virginia Mecklenburg examines the reactions of Ashcan-era critics to the artists' work and finds a greater degree of acceptance than has often been realized.