The City from Greenwich Village
c. 1922
Medium
graphite
Dimensions
overall: 19.7 x 25.6 cm (7 3/4 x 10 1/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Helen Farr Sloan
Accession Number
1971.54.2
Art Historical Context
John Sloan’s *The City from Greenwich Village* (c. 1922) offers a quiet yet evocative glimpse of New York at a moment of rapid transformation As a leading member of the Ashcan School, Sloan was renowned for his honest portrayals of urban, and this graphite drawing captures the city’s skyline as seen from thehemian neighborhood where he lived and worked. The small sheet—just under eight by ten inches—records the contrast between the intimate, low-rise streets of the Village and the rising towers beyond, reflecting the tension between old and new that defined the early twentieth century. Execut...
About the Artist
John Sloan
John French Sloan was born on August 2, 1871, in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Philadelphia, where he taught himself to draw largely through self-study and reproductions before taking evening classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Anshutz around 1892. That same year he met the painter Robert Henri, who became his closest friend and most influential mentor, enc...