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Lot Essay
William Glackens was one of the core members of a group of painters known as the Ashcan School, who pioneered and popularized American Realism at the beginning of the 20th century. Glackens began his career as an illustrator for the Philadelphia Press, and his varied artistic experiences in the later years of the 19th century helped him discover that, above all, he loved to paint the people and scenes of real life that had initially exemplified his work as a newspaper artist.
Eventually, Glackens joined seven other artists, including Robert Henri, John Sloan, and Maurice Prendergast to form The Eight, a group of painters who famously exhibited their works together at the Macbeth Galleries in 1908. This show is now "credited with having broken the nose of that [Academic] artistic dictatorship and thrown wide the portals of freedom for artists, who ever since have been able to paint how and what they please." (I. Glackens, William Glackens and the Ashcan Group: The Emergence of Realism in American Art, New York, 1957, p. 1) Glackens continued to participate in well publicized and highly regarded expositions throughout the first two decades of the 1900s. At the same time, he became closely associated with prominent American collectors like Albert C. Barnes, who introduced him to French artists Henri Matisse, Paul Cèzanne, and Pierre Auguste Renoir, all of whom had marked effects on Glackens's art.
Children - Washington Square Park is an example of Glackens's work that exhibits the influences of these French artists. In discussing a picture stylistically like Children - Washington Square Park called Children Roller Skating, Jorge Santis writes, "it vividly exemplifies Glackens's taste for experimentation, more closely resembling works by Kees van Dongen, Raoul Dufy, Ludwig Kirchner, and Henri Matisse than those by [Robert] Henri. The figures are elongated and manneristic, the landscape lacks solidity, and any trace of realism is forsaken in favor of almost ethereal elegance. This decorative approach was not an accident, having been carefully planned." ("The Glackens Collection", in W.H. Gerdts, William Glackens, New York, 1996, p. 180)
The present work depicts a scene in an urban refuge with several figures participating in various activities: some strolling, others watching their children play, and more simply resting. Children - Washington Square Park is a glimpse at everyday urban life, vitalized and brightened with Glackens's unabashed use of color and free brushstroke. Washington Square, on which Glackens had a studio, was a frequent subject of his work, a world full of the people and scenes that had drawn him to art in the first place, and remained an important part of his career throughout.
Eventually, Glackens joined seven other artists, including Robert Henri, John Sloan, and Maurice Prendergast to form The Eight, a group of painters who famously exhibited their works together at the Macbeth Galleries in 1908. This show is now "credited with having broken the nose of that [Academic] artistic dictatorship and thrown wide the portals of freedom for artists, who ever since have been able to paint how and what they please." (I. Glackens, William Glackens and the Ashcan Group: The Emergence of Realism in American Art, New York, 1957, p. 1) Glackens continued to participate in well publicized and highly regarded expositions throughout the first two decades of the 1900s. At the same time, he became closely associated with prominent American collectors like Albert C. Barnes, who introduced him to French artists Henri Matisse, Paul Cèzanne, and Pierre Auguste Renoir, all of whom had marked effects on Glackens's art.
Children - Washington Square Park is an example of Glackens's work that exhibits the influences of these French artists. In discussing a picture stylistically like Children - Washington Square Park called Children Roller Skating, Jorge Santis writes, "it vividly exemplifies Glackens's taste for experimentation, more closely resembling works by Kees van Dongen, Raoul Dufy, Ludwig Kirchner, and Henri Matisse than those by [Robert] Henri. The figures are elongated and manneristic, the landscape lacks solidity, and any trace of realism is forsaken in favor of almost ethereal elegance. This decorative approach was not an accident, having been carefully planned." ("The Glackens Collection", in W.H. Gerdts, William Glackens, New York, 1996, p. 180)
The present work depicts a scene in an urban refuge with several figures participating in various activities: some strolling, others watching their children play, and more simply resting. Children - Washington Square Park is a glimpse at everyday urban life, vitalized and brightened with Glackens's unabashed use of color and free brushstroke. Washington Square, on which Glackens had a studio, was a frequent subject of his work, a world full of the people and scenes that had drawn him to art in the first place, and remained an important part of his career throughout.