William James Glackens (1870 – 1938) was an American realist painter
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Paintings by William James Glackens

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William James Glackens (March 13, 1870 – May 22, 1938) was an American realist painter and one of the founders of the Ashcan School of American art. He is also known for his work in helping Albert C. Barnes to acquire the European paintings that form the nucleus of the famed Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. His dark-hued, vibrantly painted street scenes and depictions of daily life in pre-WW I New York and Paris first established his reputation as a major artist. His later work was brighter in tone and showed the strong influence of Renoir. During much of his career as a painter, Glackens also worked as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines in Philadelphia and New York City.

Glackens and The Eight

In New York, Glackens became associated with a group of artists known today as The Eight, five of whom (Robert Henri, John Sloan, George Luks, and Everett Shinn as well as Glackens) are considered Ashcan realists. The other members of this loose association were Arthur B. Davies, Ernest Lawson, and Maurice Prendergast. “The Eight” was a not term of the group’s own choosing, but after their first exhibition in 1908, it became their unofficial title in the press, alluding to the fact that the artists’ cause had little to do with stylistic similarities and everything to do with art politics. These eight men had decided to hold a separate exhibition after experiencing repeated rejection from the “official” exhibitions at the powerful, conservative National Academy of Design. Their breakaway venture was, in part, a way of protesting that controlling body’s rigid definition of artistic beauty. Their show at the Macbeth Gallery was a small-scale “succès de scandale” and toured several cities from Newark to Chicago in an traveling exhibition curated by Sloan. The painters gained wider recognition and were invited to exhibit at many institutions. More importantly, they had initiated a national debate about acceptable subject matter in art and the need to end the constraints of The Genteel Tradition in American culture. Most of the Eight also participated in the “Exhibition of Independent Artists” in 1910, a further attempt to break down the exclusivity of the Academy.

By 1910, Glackens began to concentrate on a “highly personal coloristic style” which represented a break from the Ashcan approach to art. It was, his biographer William Gerdts wrote, “his conversion to mainstream Impressionism.” His work was often compared to that of Renoir, to the point that he was called “the American Renoir.” Glackens’ response to this criticism was always the same: “Can you think of a better man to follow than Renoir?” In aesthetic terms, Glackens’ link to his friends who were a part of the Ashcan movement was always tenuous. Ultimately, Glackens was a “pure” painter for whom the sensuousness of the art form was paramount, not a social chronicler or an artist with a bent for politics or provocation

William James Glackens Artwork

Autumn Landscape, ca. 1895. Oil on canvas
Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, 1904. Oil on canvas
Chez Mouquin, 1905. Oil on canvas
Maypole, Central Park, 1905. Oil on canvas
Central Park in Winter, 1905. Oil on canvas
Nude with Apple, 1910. Oil on canvas
March Day, Washington Square, 1912. Oil on Canvas Image
Sledding, Central Park, 1912. Oil on canvas
Bathing at Bellport, Long Island, 1912. Oil on Canvas Image
Beach Scene, New London, 1918. Oil on canvas
Woman in Blue Hat, ca. 1918. Oil on canvas
Flowers in a Quimper Pitcher, ca. 1930. Oil on canvas
The Soda Fountain, 1935. Oil on canvas