Ashcan School
( 1908-1913 )

   The Ashcan school is a revolutionary group of young American artists who at the beginning of the 20th century in New York City, rebel against academic art with their individualism and defiantly urban art. Conservative in style, the Ashcan paintings were revolutionary in content. The Ashcan group sought to capture the feel of turn-of-the-century New York City, through realistic and unglamorized portraits of real life in gritty cities crowded with immigrants and the struggling poor. With such unpleasing titles as The Wrestlers, The Shoppers, and Hairdressers' Window, Sixth Avenue, their paintings captured spontaneous moments in everyday events.

   They were known as the New York Realists, called by critics as the "revolutionary black gang" and the "apostles of ugliness." A critic, referring to their depictions also conferred them the pejorative label Ashcan School which became the standard term for this first important American art movement of the 20th century.

   The primary members of the movement included "the Eight": Robert Henri, Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, William Glackens, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, and George Luks. It was a diverse group of painters but opposed to academic art. Another central figure, George Bellows, joined the movement later.

   Members of the Ashcan School were connected with the Macbeth Gallery throughout much of their careers.