The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of May 29, 2023

The Theater

1909

John Sloan

(American, 1871–1951)

America, 20th century

Color monotype

Platemark: 19.1 x 22.8 cm (7 1/2 x 9 in.); Sheet: 27.3 x 27 cm (10 3/4 x 10 5/8 in.)

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph L. Wilson in memory of Anna Elizabeth Wilson 1961.162

© Delaware Art Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Catalogue raisonné: Not in Morse

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

To make this monotype, John Sloan covered a printing plate with ink and wiped it away in areas to create an image, a technique called "dark-field manner."

Description

The opera houses, symphony halls, and theaters constructed in the first quarter of the 1900s in America’s cities accommodated increasingly large audiences and constituted a new realm of “high” culture. This print records John Sloan’s first experience with opera: likely that of Tannhäuser or Louise, both of which he saw with his wife, Dolly, in February 1909. To make this monotype—a unique image printed from a design made on a printing plate—Sloan manipulated and wiped black and green ink to evoke the effects of artificial lighting on a darkened interior, focusing more attention on the crowd than on the performance itself.

Provenance
?-1961
Mr. and Mrs. Ralph L. Wilson, Canton, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
August 19, 1961
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 357
Exhibition history

What Was the Armory Show?. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (June 27-September 15, 1963).

Prints and Drawings, 1916-1965. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 20-July 24, 1966).

The Painterly Print. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (May 1-June 29, 1980); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA (July 29-September 28, 1980).

America Draws. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1984-March 17, 1985).

Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan Artists and Their New York, 1897-1917. National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC (co-organizer) (November 17, 1995-March 17, 1996).

On the Edge of Your Seat: Popular Theatre and Film in Early 20th-century American Art. Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum (organizer) (April 27-August 4, 2002); Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Museum of American Art, Philadelphia, PA (February 8-April 20, 2003).

Monotypes: Painterly Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (May 31-October 11, 2015).

Ashcan School Prints and the American City, 1900-1940. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 18-December 26, 2021).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1961.162