43. John Sloan
(1871-1951)

Girls Sliding

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Sloan, Girls Sliding

Girls Sliding

Etching, 1915, 107 x 149 mm., Morse 171 iv/iv. Very fine, early impression, with areas of tone and wiping, on laid paper with full margins (two deckle edges), signed in pencil, titled and annotated “100 proofs.” There is an additional inscription below, “1915 – O.B.” and the original price: $15. The scene is Washington Square Park, New York City, in the winter. With Sloan and the other Ashcan artists, a specifically American urban realism enters the tradition of the Etching Revival. The focus, like that of Brouet, is on the people, secondarily on the place, but these are not the colorful outer edges of society portrayed for sophisticated collectors, but the same people we run across in the subway, on the streets, in the parks, our friends, our neighbors, ourselves. Sloan, probably before any other American etcher, brought it all home.