Everett Shinn and the Ashcan School Everett Shinn’s career as a painter and illustrator of the Ashcan School flourished at a time when mid to late nineteenth century American and European artists defiantly challenged the long held conventions of academic art by exploring alternative subject matter and means of visual representation.   Naturalists and Realists had begun creating works that depicted the daily lives of the rural and urban working class on both continents.  Basing the content of a work of art on anything other than the elite, who comprised the patronage, directly contradicted the focus of traditional genres.  Simultaneously, photography emerged as a medium which captured the image of a moment in time.  Photographers and photo-journalists the had the capability to produce, reproduce, and print the activities and events of modern life at a speed that had previously not been possible and in a way that left interpretation wholly up to the viewer rather than the artist. In light of these developments, newspaper illustrators like Everett Shinn nonetheless used the skill of their hands to infuse their observations with a sense of humor that emphasized humanity, and gestures that suggested the speed of the actions that took place.  Unlike photographers, these artists had the option of using the powerful element of color in their paintings and pastel drawings as well as black and white. Shinn’s documentation of life in New York City’s streets and theaters served as the foundation for the further development of his art and led him to meet a group that became known as the Immortal Eight.  The members of the Social Realist Movement, also known as the Ashcan school, were criticized for their accounts of urban society which depicted the harsh realities that came to exist with the rise of modern industrial cities. Impressionist artists in Paris, another expanding metropolis, also worked directly from life, drawing and painting what they saw in front of them.  The impact of impressionism on Everett Shinn’s art can be seen in his use of changing natural light and the manner in which it affected the color of street scenes as well as the drama he created using the glowing lights of the theater and circus performances he attended.  The ground breaking work of the Realists and Impressionists created an environment that gave the next generation of Post-Impressionist and Modernist artists the freedom to experiment with new modes of expression and the impetus to begin the exciting journey into twentieth century abstraction and non-representational art.  The influence of French art and culture remained with Shinn during his transition into the decorative arts.  Shinn’s interior designs and the panel paintings he was commissioned to create for Mai Coe’s bedroom and bathroom suite were all executed in the French Rococo Revival style.   These works revisit the influences of eighteenth century French painters such as Jean-Honore’ Fragonard, Francois Boucher, and Jean-Antoine Watteau.  This group of  artists presented whimsical scenes of elegant outdoor garden entertaining infused with allusions to classical mythological themes.  Everett Shinn incorporated these subjects and visual elements into the recently reacquired paintings that will be on view in Mai Coe’s master bedroom during the Spring tour season at Coe Hall that begins on April 1st, 2008.