A bit about the American movement in art at the turn of the century dubbed the Ashcan School and the artists who were among those to influence it.

1. The Ashcan School
And “The Eight”

2. About 1900, a group of realists artists set
themselves apart from and challenged the
American Impressionists and academics.
The most extensively trained member of this
group was Robert Henri (1865–1929), who had
studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts from 1886 to 1888 under Thomas
Anshutz (1851–1912).
Anshutz had himself studied at the
Pennsylvania Academy from 1876 to 1882
with Thomas Eakins, who had defied Victorian
decorum in his teaching principles and in his
boldly realistic paintings.

3. Eakins would become
the lodestar to Henri and
his associates. After
spending the years from
1888 to 1891 working at
the Académie Julian
in Paris, Henri taught at
the School of Design for
Women in Philadelphia
and gave private art
classes in and around
that city and, during
return visits to France, in
and around Paris.
At Cleveland Museum of Art :
Eakins's painting celebrates a famous rowing race that took
place on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia during May
1872.

4. Beginning in 1892, Henri also became the mentor to four Philadelphia Illustrators — William James
Glackens (1870–1938), George Luks (1866–1933), Everett Shinn (1876–1953), and John Sloan (1871–
1951)—who worked together at several local newspapers and gathered to study, share studios, and
travel. Between late 1896 and 1904, they all moved to New York, where Henri himself settled in 1900.

5. Henri and his
former-Philadelphia
associates comprised
the first generation
of what came to be
known as the
Ashcan School. A
second generation
consisted of Henri’s
New York students,
of whom George
Bellows (1882–1925)
was the most
devoted.
Stag at Sharkey’s, 1909. by George Wesley Bellows - Part of the
Cleveland Museum of Art's permanent collection since 1922.

6. The term Ashcan School was
suggested by a drawing by Bellows
captioned Disappointments of the
Ash Can, which appeared in
the Philadelphia Record in April
1915; was invoked by cartoonist
Art Young in a disparaging critique
that appeared in the New York
Sun in April 1916; and was given
curatorial currency by Holger
Cahill and Alfred H. Barr Jr. in a
1934 exhibition at New York’s
Museum of Modern Art.

7. Although the Ashcan artists were not an
organized “school” and espoused somewhat
varied styles and subjects, they were all urban
Realists who supported Henri’s credo—“art for
life’s sake,” rather than “art for art’s sake.” They
also presented their works in several important
early twentieth-century New York exhibitions,
including a group show at the National Arts Club
in 1904; the landmark show of The Eight at
Macbeth Galleries in February 1908, which
included the five senior Ashcan School painters
along with Ernest Lawson (1873–1939), Maurice
Prendergast (1858–1924), and Arthur B. Davies
(1862–1928); the Exhibition of Independent
Artists in 1910; and the Armory Show—an
immense display dominated by modern
European art—in 1913.

8. White Ballet 1904
by Everett Shinn
Self Portrait 1901
by Everett Shinn

9. In their paintings as in their illustrations, etchings and lithographs, Henri and his fellow Ashcan artists
concentrated on portraying New York’s vitality and recording its seamy side, keeping a keen eye on
current events and their era’s social and political rhetoric.
Stylistically, they depended upon the dark palette and gestural brushwork of Diego Valazquez, Frans
Hals, Francisco de Goya,, Honoré Daumier, and recent Realists such as Wilhelm Leibl, Edouard
Manet and Edgar Degas. They preferred broad, calligraphic forms, which they could render “on the
run” or from memory, thereby enlisting skills that most of them had cultivated as newspaper
illustrators.
Although the Ashcan artists advocated immersion in modern actualities, they were neither social
critics nor reformers and they did not paint radical propaganda. While they identified with the vitality
of the lower classes and resolved to register the dismal aspects of urban existence, they themselves
led pleasant middle-class lives, enjoying New York’s restaurants and bars, its theater and vaudeville,
and its popular nearby resorts such as Coney Island. Because they avoided civil unrest, class tensions,
and the grit of the streets, their works are never as direct or disturbing as those of their European
counterparts or of the reformist images of American photographers such as Jacob Riis.

10. The Ashcan artists selectively documented an unsettling, transitional time
in American culture that was marked by confidence and doubt, excitement
and trepidation. Ignoring or registering only gently harsh new realities such
as the problems of immigration and urban poverty, they shone a positive
light on their era. Along with the American Impressionists, the Ashcan
artists defined the avant-garde in the United States until the 1913 Armory
Show introduced to the American public the works of true
modernists Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and others.
Henri and most of his Ashcan colleagues continued to paint—even into
the 1940s, in the case of Sloan and Shinn. Although their creativity waned
and their pioneering character faded, they infused some of their late
canvases with their earlier vigor. (H. Barbara Weinberg The American Wing,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art April 2010)
At the Saint Louis Art Museum Betalo Rubino, Dramatic Dancer 1916 by Robert Henri

11. Little David After the Rain 1908 by
Arthur Davies
Pallisades.1911 by
Ernest Lawson
Everett Shinn

12. McSorley’s 1912 by John Sloan
Self Protrait of John Sloan 1916

13. Sun and Wind on the Roof 1915 by John Sloan
Houston Street 1917 by George Luks

14. Maurice Prendergast portrait by George Luks
Seashore, 1913
by Maurice Prendergast

15. William Glackens Self Portrait, 1908
Green Car, 1909 by William Glackens

16. Emma at the Piano, 1914 by George Wesley Bellows
Lithograph of family, 1921 by George Wesley Bellows

17. Robert Henri Self Portrait 1903

18. The Ashcan School – The Eight
(or maybe more)
• Thomas Eakins (1844 -1916)
• Robert Henri (1865 - 1929)
• William James Glackens (1870 - 1938)
• George Luks (1866 - 1933)
• Everett Shinn (1876 - 1953)
• John Sloan (1871 - 1951)
• George Wesley Bellows (1882 - 1926)
• Ernest Lawson (1873 - 1939)
• Maurice Prendergast (1858 - 1924)
• Arthur B. Davies (1862 - 1928)