Lot Essay
This work appears as JS306 in the artist's records.
John Sloan executed Humoresque in the summer of 1915 while living in Gloucester, Massachusetts. After his encounter with the work of Vincent Van Gogh at the Armory Show in New York in 1913, Sloan began to alter his use of color, heightening his palette and concentrating on the effects of light.
In addition to discovering new approaches to color that he saw in the paintings of European artists, Sloan also learned about their working methods. Sloan recalled, "I realized they had 'a habit of working.' My way had been, since I had so little time to work for myself, to wait until I had an idea for a picture. Of course I painted some portraits of friends and did some small landscapes when I had a week or two off in the summer, but at the age of forty I realized that I needed some new way to keep at work. I saw that the European artists kept themselves going with any kind of subject, landscape or portrait or still life (in any style). This method produces more work, more 'studies;' but it also leads to the discovery of new motivation. I made up my mind to save enough money to take a few months off to paint landscapes in Gloucester."
Of the works Sloan executed in Gloucester, Rowland Elzea has written, "The Gloucester paintings were completely different from the city paintings in that they were not concerned with narrative or incident -- there are hardly any figures in his 1914 Gloucester paintings, although they reappear in plenty the following summer -- and few of his subjects could be thought 'picturesque' or dramatic, as seaside paintings often are. Rocks, weeds and bushes, calm seas, undistiguished architecture, and gawky children in their everyday clothes make up the majority of his subjects. His real subjects were those of the painter as Sloan understood them: the dynamics of color and the solidity of form." (R. Elzea, John Sloan: A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, p. 24)
Humoresque, like the majority of the Gloucester paintings, was executed directly from nature. During the summer the artist worked rapidly, applying paint with bold color harmonies and vigorous, animated brushstrokes. Sloan himself said to his wife Helen Farr Sloan, "Landscape is the best kind of material to study when seeking freedom from color formulas and I was then [the Gloucester period] fascinated by experimenting with new color theories to express ideas about form and texture and light. . . Some of my Gloucester works may be criticized for lack of finish. I was often painting two pictures a day, sometimes 26 x 32" -- deeply interested in the study of color. The preparation of the palette took at least forty-five minutes and then I would paint for three hours. Sometimes more work was done back at home, but most of these things were completed on the spot." (Notes, John Sloan Trust, Delaware Art Museum, Newark, Delaware, p. 252)
John Sloan executed Humoresque in the summer of 1915 while living in Gloucester, Massachusetts. After his encounter with the work of Vincent Van Gogh at the Armory Show in New York in 1913, Sloan began to alter his use of color, heightening his palette and concentrating on the effects of light.
In addition to discovering new approaches to color that he saw in the paintings of European artists, Sloan also learned about their working methods. Sloan recalled, "I realized they had 'a habit of working.' My way had been, since I had so little time to work for myself, to wait until I had an idea for a picture. Of course I painted some portraits of friends and did some small landscapes when I had a week or two off in the summer, but at the age of forty I realized that I needed some new way to keep at work. I saw that the European artists kept themselves going with any kind of subject, landscape or portrait or still life (in any style). This method produces more work, more 'studies;' but it also leads to the discovery of new motivation. I made up my mind to save enough money to take a few months off to paint landscapes in Gloucester."
Of the works Sloan executed in Gloucester, Rowland Elzea has written, "The Gloucester paintings were completely different from the city paintings in that they were not concerned with narrative or incident -- there are hardly any figures in his 1914 Gloucester paintings, although they reappear in plenty the following summer -- and few of his subjects could be thought 'picturesque' or dramatic, as seaside paintings often are. Rocks, weeds and bushes, calm seas, undistiguished architecture, and gawky children in their everyday clothes make up the majority of his subjects. His real subjects were those of the painter as Sloan understood them: the dynamics of color and the solidity of form." (R. Elzea, John Sloan: A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, p. 24)
Humoresque, like the majority of the Gloucester paintings, was executed directly from nature. During the summer the artist worked rapidly, applying paint with bold color harmonies and vigorous, animated brushstrokes. Sloan himself said to his wife Helen Farr Sloan, "Landscape is the best kind of material to study when seeking freedom from color formulas and I was then [the Gloucester period] fascinated by experimenting with new color theories to express ideas about form and texture and light. . . Some of my Gloucester works may be criticized for lack of finish. I was often painting two pictures a day, sometimes 26 x 32" -- deeply interested in the study of color. The preparation of the palette took at least forty-five minutes and then I would paint for three hours. Sometimes more work was done back at home, but most of these things were completed on the spot." (Notes, John Sloan Trust, Delaware Art Museum, Newark, Delaware, p. 252)