The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 19, 2025
Reading in the Subway
1926
(American, 1871–1951)
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.)
© Delaware Art Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Catalogue raisonné: Morse 223
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.”- Ashcan School Prints and the American City, 1900–1940. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 18-December 26, 2021).Urban Vicissitudes. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 2-September 29, 1985).Mr. and Mrs. Charles G. Prasse Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 11-October 21, 1968).
- {{cite web|title=Reading in the Subway|url=false|author=John Sloan|year=1926|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1964.110