pencil signed and titled, image area 6" X 7" plus mat and frame, well listed artist......Biography from The Columbus Museum of Art, GeorgiaMuch like other American artists who came to the forefront of the art scene with the advent of non-academic realistic style at the beginning of the twentieth century, John Sloan initiated his career in the arts through newspaper illustration. Before honing his skills through illustration, he worked at a bookshop where he learned the etching process. From there he served as an illustrator at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Press, and even produced full-page, color puzzle drawings in the Art Nouveau style. Employment at the newspapers allowed time for instruction at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Thomas Anshutz. Nevertheless, it was the camaraderie amongst the young Philadelphia illustrators, and their desire to better their work that elevated them as artists. Sloan was one of the group that met weekly at the studio of Robert Henri to paint and receive criticism.(1)By 1903, John Sloan was seeking a career breakthrough. Since 1895 he had been employed as an artist by the Philadelphia Press, and had filled their Sunday newspaper editions with elegant Art Nouveau illustrations and pictorial puzzles. During the previous year, however, his close friend, the artist William Glackens, had asked Sloan and their Philadelphia colleague, George Luks, to collaborate on the etchings for a deluxe edition of the writings of the popular author Paul de Kock. It was Sloan's first major illustration commission outside of his work for the Press. De Kock's fictional histories of French life in the 1840s were filled with sex, wine and ambiguity, and Sloan responded enthusiastically to the challenge. His etchings for de Kock were immediately recognized for their fresh, invigorating realism, compositional daring, and "clumsiness" - the critics' term at the time for bold graphic realization, or "rude vigor" - and gained him a reputation as "among the most original draughtsmen in the country," and a leading proponent of the "dash and virility of life."(2)Sloan moved to New York City in 1904, and he encountered the subject matter that would define his oeuvre—life on the city streets. He continued working as an illustrator in New York, producing images for publications such as Harper's and Scribner's. His surroundings in the city dominated his own art as Sloan continued to develop a realistic style through drawing, painting and etching. He participated in the rebellious exhibition of The Eight in 1908, which immediately elevated the status of artists such as Sloan, because they broke with academic tradition through both technique and subject matter which critics deemed offensive. Sloan also involved himself in the exhibition of the Independent Artists and served as president of the Society of Independent Artists from 1918 until his death. Sloan continued his involvement with liberal politics by joining the Socialist Party and joining the staff of The Masses, a socialist magazine, as art editor. Eventually he would abandon both the party and the magazine over ideological debates. Sloan remained active in the New York art scene throughout his life. Like so many artists, he influenced students as an instructor at the Art Students League. He continued to promote the spirit and the vitality of the city as a primary subject, but found that summer trips to Gloucester, Massachusetts, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, provided alternatives with new and interesting people and places to paint. Sloan painted the female figure consistently, exploring a wide range of representational modes for the female body.(3) He portrayed women in a myriad of activities, but it is the combination of feminine subject with portraiture that he explored frequently. Sloan's reputation does not reflect his portraits, which are overshadowed by images of vital metropolitan life in the early twentieth century. Yet portraits remain integral to his exploration of art, as he continued to strive for the most successful combination of paint application, color, harmony, and interpretation of subject. The artist wrote, "Students find it hard to create a portrait, because they are so concerned with superficial likeness that they are afraid to use their imagination. You must find something that strikes you about the person; put it down as your point of view."(4)Footnotes:1. For biographical information, see Rowland Elzea, John Sloan's Oil Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné (Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1991). Other books on Sloan include: Bruce St. Johns, ed., John Sloan's New York Scene (New York, Harper & Row, 1965) and David Scott, John Sloan (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1975). For additional accounts of Sloan's life and art, see Lloyd Goodrich, John Sloan (New York: Published for the Whitney Museum of American Art by the Macmillan Co., 1952); Van Wyck Brooks, John Sloan: A Painter's Life (New York: Dutton, 1955); E. John Bullard, John Sloan and the Philadelphia Realists as Illustrators, 1890-1920 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968); Bruce St. John, John Sloan (New York: Praeger, 1971); Rowland Elzea and Elizabeth Hawkes, John Sloan: Spectator of Life (Wilmington: Delaware Art Museum, 1988); and John Loughery, John Sloan: Painter and Rebel (New York: H. Holt, 1995). 2. Thanks to Bruce Chambers for these notes. Also, see New York Evening Sun, April 25, 1903, as quoted in David Scott, John Sloan (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1975): 70. 3. Karen Sherry, "Form and Meaning in John Sloan's Representations of the Female Body" in The Gist of Drawing: Works on Paper by John Sloan (Wilmington: Delaware Art Museum, 1997). 4. John Sloan, Gist of Art (New York: Dover Publications, 1939), 107. Staff, Columbus Museum