Everett Shinn
1876-1953

Born in 1876, Everett Shinn, who was both an adept draftsman and mechanically inclined, began his working life as a designer of gas lighting fixtures.  His skillful doodles of street life caught the eye of his superior who suggested that the young Shinn enroll in art school; Shinn entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in the fall of 1893.  To support himself, he worked nights at the Philadelphia Press as an illustrative reporter.  There he befriended George Luks, also an illustrator, and together the two eventually met Robert Henri, William Glackens and John Sloan.  Along with Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson and Arthur B. Davies, this loosely formed group would become known as The Eight, or the Ashcan School.  Their first exhibition, held in New York in 1908, was a deliberative act of rebellion against the conservative art establishment.

The Ashcan School was led by Henri, an influential teacher and artist, who taught his students a new technique of painting—Henri believed that a truly relevant art must deal with the quotidian realities of the urban experience, not shying away from scenes of urban squalor and poverty.  Henri also stressed that works should be created quickly, in an attempt to convey a sense of spontaneity and vitality.  The palette of the Ashcan School eschewed bright colors, concentrating instead on dark, earthy tones.

Encouraged by Henri, Shinn moved to New York in 1897 and worked as an illustrator at The New York World.  He loved (and was inspired by) the incredible energy, variety and ambition of its people.