Description | Title Transportation, Intimacy, and Dislocation in the Work of John Sloan Description In April 1907, a Harper’s Weekly critic commended John Sloan and his fellow New York Ashcan artists for representing “actual human beings, their emotional life, and the material environment that helps determine their character.” Although Sloan is best known for his portrayals of social interactions in urban settings, he turned to one aspect of New York's "built environment" — its rapid transit system — to probe themes of interiority and disconnection. This paper investigates Sloan’s depictions of commuters in relation to the artist’s own experiences of placelessness as well as period discourses about the social and psychological effects of spatial mobility in the turn-of-the-century city. Speaker Lacey Baradel is the Allan and Mary Kollar Endowed Fellow in American Art and an Acting Assistant Professor (temporary) in the Division of Art History. Image John Sloan, The Wake of the Ferry II, 1907. Oil on canvas, 26 x 32 inches. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. |
---|