Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). View source
McSorley's Bar
John Sloan · Realism & Academic
- Artist
- John French Sloan (1871–1951)
- Date
- 1912
- Dimensions
- 66 x 81.3 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, United States
McSorley's Bar shows the interior of an old New York saloon, with working men in hats and coats leaning on the long wooden bar, drinking ale and talking, while a bartender in a white apron serves them. Behind them, the dark walls are crowded with old pictures and memorabilia.
A closer look
McSorley's Old Ale House in the East Village, founded in the 1850s, was a famous men-only tavern, and Sloan loved its warm, unchanged atmosphere. The picture is painted with quick, loose strokes in rich browns and ambers, lit by a soft light falling on the faces and the bar. Sloan was a member of the 'Ashcan School', a group of New York painters who chose to depict the everyday life of the city's ordinary people, its streets, tenements and bars, rather than polite society.