JOHN SLOAN
Night Windows.
Etching, 1910. 136x179 mm; 5¼x7 inches, full margins. Fifth state (of 5). Edition of 110 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed in pencil, lower right. A superb, dark impression with strong contrasts.In his diary, Sloan (1871-1951) wrote, "The subject of this plate is one which I have had in mind—night, the roofs back of us—a girl in deshabille at a window and a man on the roof smoking his pipe." It seems that he struggled with the execution of this idea, however; at various points he refers to this plate as "a pretty bad snarl," and "a mess of line." After roughly two years of work, a substantial amount of time for an etching of this size, he finally deemed the plate fit for publishing. According to Levin, "Hopper may have first met John Sloan as early as April 1904, just after Sloan's move to New York where he lived in the same building as Robert Henri, but certainly by 1906 when Sloan substituted for Henri for one month at the New York School of Art. For Edward Hopper, Sloan represented one artist he could respect who prior to 1916 had worked regularly as a commercial illustrator. Sloan's influence is particularly visible during Hopper's formative years," (Levin, Edward Hopper as Illustrator, New York, 1979, page 9). Morse 152.