Urban Realism movement explored at Lyman Allyn
Many of the art movements that occurred before the 1940s throughout the United States haven't been wholly recognized, or remembered, even now, says Lyman Allyn Art Museum curator Tanya Pohrt.
We remember, for instance, American Impressionism, she says, but even that was overshadowed by the major art periods, such as cubism and post-impressionism, happening at the same time in France.
Urban Realism, which took place in the 20th century, and is also known as the Ashcan School period, was one such art movement that most wouldn't typically call to mind.
The movement, however, is being explored at Lyman Allyn Art Museum this summer in an exhibition titled “Urban Realism in American Art (1890-1940).” The show, which features the works of over 30 different artists who participated in the movement, will run until Sept. 10.
Characterized by artists flocking to urban city centers, namely New York in the early 20th century, Urban Realism was built around the idea of depicting scenes that unfolded throughout urban communities — all of which were rapidly expanding, namely due to the expansion of American industry and an influx of European immigrants. Those realities portrayed included the city's glamorous sides but mostly the “gritty back alleys” and “overcrowded tenements,” as described in the exhibition's wall text.
“These artists were looking to rebel against academic formal art. For them, art wasn't supposed to be about painting fancy rich people. They thought it should be about the vitality of the life around us and should represent all walks of life,” Pohrt says.
Many of the New York-based artists who are known throughout this period
were participants of the Ashcan School group. The group, however, wasn't considered an organized movement, just a collection of artists with the common desire to tell certain truths about the city, something that they felt had been ignored and stamped out by the influence of the Genteel Tradition in the visual arts.
Many of the works that make up the exhibit are sketches made on paper, along with several lithographs. The simple black-and-white mediums give an even more stark depiction of the overcrowded realities that existed. The reason for the abundance of this specific artistic medium is due to the fact that many of the artists from this movement were also sketch artists for newspapers — and therefore were on the frontlines of the city and witnessing its realities.
Robert Henri, one such sketch artist, is considered the father of the movement.
“Henri represents taking a sketch in an instant and capturing a moment in time,” Pohrt says.
The only piece in the show by Henri, however, is one that is slightly removed from the movement — a depiction of a landscape in France while he was studying abroad.
Other notable artists included George Luks, William Glackens, John Sloan and George Bellows.
Sloan, also a magazine sketch artist, is featured in the exhibition with a work titled “He clutched the big fellow's hat...” — a depiction of a woman's seat being taken from her on a crowded subway while a young man stands up to her defense. The two are later supposed to fall in love.
“Besides highlighting working-class romance, the piece was included with a fictional story in a magazine,” Pohrt says. “Sloan and his friends were interested in depicting the everyday working-class scenes throughout the streets.”
In a work titled “The Street,” George Bellows depicts a dense and diverse street scene. In it, two well-dressed women walk by a small domestic brawl. In the background, a tenement woman is chastising her barefooted son.
“Bellows in particular was interested in the social dynamics happening within the city,” Pohrt says. “The rich mingling with poor was happening a lot during this time, and that was a point that many of these artists tried to highlight throughout their work.”
Overlooked immigrant neighborhoods also became much of the focus for many of these artists, Pohrt says, as were the rooms that they inhabited while waiting for their entrance into the United States on Ellis Island.
In a painting created by Susan Ricker Knox, dozens of immigrants are packed into a waiting room on Ellis Island. Most of them look lost or bored while waiting for an unspecified amount of time before moving on to the next step in their immigration journey.
“They were sitting in a no man's land, without any idea what would come next,” Pohrt says. “It's moments like these that are still pertinent today.”