ASHCAN SCHOOL

ASHCAN SCHOOL. A group of artists loosely formed a group they called "the Eight" or the Ashcan School because they could find art in the "ashcans" of dirty cities. Led by Robert Henri, the group included George Luks, William Glackens, John Sloan, Everett Shinn, Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, and Ernest Lawson, and later it added Henri's prized student George Bellows.

Not a formal society or school, as all were fiercely independent, they shared a common look at every day life through the lens of a journalist and the soul of a poet. Many had work experience as illustrators at magazines or newspapers, which contributed to their journalistic approach. The Ashcan artists disdained the academic pretensions of the established art world, while critics, who did not want to see such vulgarity displayed in art, called the group "the Revolutionary Black Gang."

The Eight held its first exhibition in 1908 and another in 1910. The show was so popular and sensational that riot police had to be called to subdue the crowd. The true impact of the Ashcan School did not occur until three years later with the Armory Show, by some accounts the most important exhibit ever held in the United States. The Armory Show shocked the public by showcasing the outrageous styles adopted by the Eight and by European artists, including Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, and Henri Matisse. Despite the critical turmoil, more than 300,000

Americans saw the Armory Show, which invented the term "modern art."

Henri and the other original members of the Ashcan movement took Winslow Homer as their spiritual guide and also looked to the great poet Walt Whitman for inspiration. Bellows used the gritty streets as his guide, including the illegal boxing clubs of the early 1900s. His Stag at Sharkey's (1909) and Both Members of This Club (1909) are possibly the most powerful paintings stemming from the group.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Braider, Donald. George Bellows and the Ashcan School of Painting. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971.

Perlman, Bennard B. Painters of the Ashcan School: The Immortal Eight. New York: Dover, 1988.

BobBatchelor

Ashcan School. A term retrospectively applied to a number of American painters (not a formal group) active in New York in the decade before the First World War in reference to their shared interest in subject-matter from everyday urban life; the term was first used in print in 1934 in a book entitled Art in America in Modern Times, edited by Holger Cahill and Alfred H. Barr. The painters embraced by the term were inspired largely by Robert Henri (one of whose dictums was that ‘Art cannot be separated from life') and the four central figures—Glackens, Luks, Shinn, and Sloan—were all members of The Eight, a short-lived group founded by Henri in 1908. (The two terms are often confused, but ‘The Eight’ has a precise meaning, whereas ‘Ashcan School’ is a broader and vaguer notion; there is overlap between them, but some of the members of The Eight did not paint Ashcan-type subjects.) Before settling in New York (between 1896 and 1904) the four central Ashcan artists had all been artist-reporters on the Philadelphia Press. At a time when the camera was little used in newspaper work, the job of making rapid sketches on the spot for subsequent publication demanded a quick eye and and a rapid hand, and encouraged an interest in scenes of everyday life. However, in style and technique the artists of the Ashcan School are now seen to have differed less from contemporary academic painting than they themselves believed. Although they often painted slum life and outcasts and were referred to as the ‘revolutionary black gang', they were interested more in the picturesque aspects of their subjects than in the social issues they raised; it was not until the 1930s that Social Realism became a major force in American art. Among the other painters who have been described as members of the Ashcan School are George Bellows, Glenn Coleman (1887–1932), Eugene Higgins (1874–1958), Edward Hopper, and Jerome Myers

Ashcan School. A term (first used in print in 1934) applied to a loose group of American painters active in New York from about 1908 until the First World War, in reference to the everyday urban subject matter they favoured. The painters embraced by the term were inspired largely by Robert Henri (one of whose dictums was that ‘Art cannot be separated from life’), and the four central figures—Glackens, Luks, Shinn, and Sloan—had been members of The Eight, a short-lived group founded by Henri in 1908. (The two terms are often confused, but ‘The Eight’ has a precise meaning, whereas ‘Ashcan School’ is a broader and vaguer notion; there is overlap between them, but some of the members of The Eight did not paint Ashcan-type subjects.) Before settling in New York, the four central Ashcan artists had all been artist-reporters on the Philadelphia Press and so had been used to making rapid sketches of scenes of everyday life. In style and technique, however, they are now seen to have differed less from contemporary academic painting than they themselves believed. Although they often painted slum life and outcasts, they were interested more in the picturesque aspects of these subjects than in the social issues they raised. Bellows and Hopper are among the other artists associated with the group.

Ashcan School A term (first used in print in 1934) applied to a loose group of American painters active in New York from about 1908 until the First World War, in reference to the everyday urban subject matter they favoured. The painters embraced by the term were inspired largely by Robert Henri (one of whose dictums was that ‘Art cannot be separated from life’), and the four central figures—Glackens, Luks, Shinn, and Sloan—had been members of The Eight, a short-lived group founded by Henri in 1908. (The two terms are often confused, but ‘The Eight’ has a precise meaning, whereas ‘Ashcan School’ is a broader and vaguer notion; there is overlap between them, but some of the members of The Eight did not paint Ashcan-type subjects.) Before settling in New York, the four central Ashcan artists had all been artist-reporters on the Philadelphia Press and so had been used to making rapid sketches of scenes of everyday life. In style and technique, however, they are now seen to have differed less from contemporary academic painting than they themselves believed. Although they often painted slum life and outcasts, they were interested more in the picturesque aspects of these subjects than in the social issues they raised. Bellows and Hopper are among the other artists associated with the group.

Ashcan school Nickname given to a group of late 19th- and early 20th-century US artists, including George Bellows, Robert Henri, and Edward Hopper, who rejected academic and traditional artistic subjects for the seamier aspects of urban life (especially New York). The inspiration for the group's interest in everyday life came from four core members William Glackens, John Sloan, George Luks, and Everett Shinn, all of whom worked as artist-reporters in Philadelphia before joining Henri's circle.

ashcan school see Eight, the .