He often came across subjects for his work near Washington Square, or Union or Madison Squares.
But in 1912, after moving from Sixth Avenue to 155 East 22nd Street, John Sloan trained his outsider’s eye on Gramercy Park (fellow social realist painter George Bellows’ territory), where he painted two women tending to a baby in a carriage on a warm, lush day.
Sloan “found his subjects in his immediate surroundings; the streets he traveled and the people he encountered were immediately translated to canvas,” wrote Margarita Karasoulas on Questroyal.com.
“He typically captured New Yorkers going about their routines from the perspective of an outside observer, painting intimate scenes with a window-like viewpoint in order to focus closely and observe the subject undetected.”
I’m curious about the red brick townhouse to the right of the park. This is 1912, and it certainly could have been torn down.
But I wonder if Sloan is giving us a look at the Stuyvesant Fish House at 19 Gramercy Park South.
Built in 1845 for a Whig politician, it was expanded and redone in the 1880s for Old New York scion and railroad magnate Stuyvesant Fish and his party-loving society hostess wife, Mamie.
Sloan’s depiction doesn’t look exactly like the house, seen here in 2010. Artistic license, perhaps?
[Photo: Wikipedia]
Ephemeral New York 