Reading in the Subway

1926

John Sloan

(American, 1871–1951)

Culture

America

Medium

etching

Measurements

Platemark: 12.5 x 10.1 cm (4 15/16 x 4 in.); Sheet: 28 x 23.8 cm (11 x 9 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Mr. and Mrs. Charles G. Prasse Collection 1964.110

Catalogue raisonné

Morse 223

State

III/III

This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

Below this print, Sloan wrote a quote from the poem A Ballad upon a Wedding by the 17th-century English poet Sir John Suckling.

Description

While etiquette manuals in the Victorian era restricted eye contact between strangers, such strictures were challenged by the culture emerging in New York City in the first decades of the 1900s. Public transportation provided people watching of the type unheard of just decades before—especially of women unaccompanied on their commute to office or retail jobs. Here, John Sloan depicted a woman lost in a book. Her crossed legs and the hint of a garter are on display. Never one to miss an opportunity for cheeky humor, Sloan added an advertisement behind the girl, reading “Rub with Sloan’s Ointment.”