Ashcan School
Ashcan School , also Ash Can group called (dt. "Ascheimer School" ) was in 1908 New York , founded painter group of American Realism .
Goals of the group
Eight Philadelphia- born painters who came to New York in 1904 came together to distance themselves from the academic style of the time, historicizing representations of the pioneering days as well as American Impressionism , and instead to immerse themselves in the harsh everyday life of different population classes in the metropolis to prescribe a new kind of socially critical American realism .
The name Ashcan , in German Ascheimer , was used disparagingly by conservative critics, but ironically it had established itself as a trademark for the movement (the artists themselves originally called themselves The Eight ).
Motifs
Primarily the everyday urban environment was depicted. Poor people in slums , drunks, criminals, accidents, crimes and social misery. Her pictures did not attract any attention at first and were rejected by galleries and museums, most of the eight earned additional money with press drawings (it was the time when newspaper photos were still rare). Some of the members later joined left-wing political movements and trade unions.
Members of the Movement
The original members of the artist group The Eight were:
- Robert Henri
- Arthur B. Davies
- Maurice Prendergast
- Ernest Lawson
- William Glackens
- Everett Shinn
- John French Sloan
- George Luks
The art movement of the Ashcan Group was attributed to a number of other artists from their environment. These included, above all, the students Henri Edward Hopper , Raphael Soyer and George Wesley Bellows . Also Mabel Dwight and the photographer Jacob Riis with its city photographs were associated with the Ashcan School.
Web links
further reading
- Rebecca Zurier, Robert W. Snyder, Virginia M. Mecklenburg, National Museum of American Art (US): Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan Artists and Their New York. Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC 1995.