Being ensconced inside a dark bar with a pint and good conversation is many a New Yorker’s idea of heaven.
John Sloan may have felt that way too.
His famous 1912 painting “McSorley’s Bar” depicts working-class customers comfortably drinking around a wood bar (with bartender Bill McSorley, son of the original owner, who founded the East Seventh Street ale house in 1854), wiling away the hours.
It’s his most renowned McSorley’s painting, but not the only one. Sloan completed at least three more, each capturing various glimpses of loneliness and whimsy and highlighting the small moments of pleasure and respite in a workingman’s life.
“McSorley’s Back Room” also dates to 1912. “The hushed, contemplative mood of this painting echoes Sloan’s description of the bar as an oasis ‘where the world seems shut out—where there is no time, nor turmoil,'” states the Hood Museum website, quoting Sloan.
“The tavern’s founder was no longer living when Sloan discovered the place, but through this painting and a related etching Sloan appears to pay homage to John McSorley, who, according to his son, always sat there in the sun.”
In 1928, Sloan memorialized the dozen cats living at the bar in “McSorley’s Cats.” Could that be bartender Bill McSorley again, with cats badgering him for food?
With Prohibition still the rule of law, Sloan painted “McSorley’s Saturday Night” between 1928 and 1930. States the McSorley’s website: “everyone seems to have a mug in his hands.”
Sloan moved to New York in 1904 and spent many years depicting the city’s moods, from joy to isolation.
As for McSorley’s, this dusty old saloon, which famously refused to serve women until a court order in 1970, has been memorialized many times in art and literature, most famously by Berenice Abbott, Joseph Mitchell, and e.e. cummings.
Tags: bars during Prohibition, drinking beer McSorley's, East Village bars, famous New York saloons, John Sloan McSorley's, John Sloan New York paintings, McSorley's Bar, McSorley's Cats, Men at McSorley's, New York during Prohibition, New York in the 1920s
Ephemeral New York 
February 13, 2014 at 1:03 pm |
Wonderful. Have shared on Facebook.
February 13, 2014 at 2:54 pm |
Love McSorely’s! One of my favourite places to visit when in NYC.
February 13, 2014 at 10:26 pm |
Interesting how all the men have their hats on. Since no ladies are present, they need not follow proper decorum.
February 14, 2014 at 12:33 am |
I didn’t even notice the hats…perhaps they kept them on out of habit?
February 15, 2014 at 1:17 am |
There’s a great history of McSorley’s in Joseph Mitchell’s terrific collection of New Yorker articles named “Up in the Old Hotel”. It’s called “McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon” and it’s the first article in a great collection of reports of mid-century New York. The whole book will be of great interest to any followers of Ephemeral New York.
March 8, 2014 at 8:39 pm |
McS still smells of sawdust and puke.
May 31, 2014 at 2:09 am |
[…] West Twenty-Third Street,” completed in 1906, is another evocative take on the city by John Sloan, with a solitary figure, dramatic sky, and representations of daily life: laundry on a […]
May 25, 2015 at 2:01 am |
[…] John Sloan’s paintings (above) depicted a warm, old-time tavern with mahogany bar, resident cats, and men lifting pitchers of ale in cheer . . . or drowning […]
July 9, 2015 at 6:56 pm |
Just finished reading Joseph Mitchell’s essay on McSorley’s. Great to see the paintings.
November 25, 2019 at 8:17 am |
[…] the most famous was John Sloan—who painted various scenes of both dark moods and high spirits inside this former working-class Irish saloon in today’s East Village from 1912 to […]
February 22, 2021 at 3:30 am |
[…] that featured cats—this Ashcan School founder memorialized a few of the dozen cats living at McSorley’s Bar on East Seventh Street in “McSorley’s Cats,” from […]
October 25, 2022 at 8:16 pm |
Women were not permitted in this bar until 1970’s, that’s why there are none in his paintings.