Object of the Month: “Sunday Afternoon in Union Square”

By the dawn of the twentieth century, modern technology and industry had begun to drastically alter the landscape of urban life. Many artists, especially in Europe, sought to respond to the changing world around them, leading to a boom of new art movements. John Sloan, and his 1912 painting, Sunday Afternoon in Union Square, exemplify how American artists interpreted these social changes into their work.

In this painting, Sloan centers two fashionable women walking through New York City’s Union Square, as they are met with the scrutinizing gazes of the crowd around them. Stylistically, he draws on elements from artistic traditions that have their origins in Europe, combining the matter-of-fact perspective of Realism with the loose and dynamic brushstrokes and color palette of Impressionism and Fauvism. In total, Sloan creates his own American interpretation of what it feels like to reside in this new urban environment.

Sloan did not begin as a painter. He originally made his living as a newspaper illustrator in Philadelphia in the early 1890s, a source of inspiration that would come to figure heavily in his work. During this time, he and like-minded colleagues soon fell under the influence of American artist Robert Henri, who convinced the group to move to New York City. These young illustrators appreciated Henri’s belief in “art for life’s sake,” which opposed the commonly held view of “art for art’s sake” (a popular phrase coined by the New England born artist James McNeil Whistler). Henri influenced a generation of American artists—including George Bellows and Edward Hopper—to look for subject matter in everyday life. 

This group of artists is now known as the Ashcan School, referring to their depictions of the “rough and tumble” side to life in New York. Many of the Ashcan artists, including Sloan, moved to the middle-class neighborhood of Chelsea—slightly removed but close enough to paint the infamous Tenderloin district, a working-class neighborhood known for vice and corruption.

The view of city life in Sunday Afternoon in Union Square reflects the Ashcan School’s observational realism and perhaps even harkens back to Sloan’s own time in the newspapers. Sloan himself even recognized his penchant for observation, stating that he was an “incorrigible window watcher.” Through this lens, the painting encourages the viewer to adopt Sloan's perspective to observe the hive of spectators who watch the young women. It also implicates the viewer in this act of observing and engaging in the urban scene unfolding, transforming the viewer into a third scrutinizer. Although Sloan is watching the scene unfold, he himself is also participating in the activity of looking at the women and surrounding crowd. A man in the far background may confirm this: he looks directly at the viewer, suggesting that Sloan has been caught in the act of observation. 

Finally, the women at the center of this painting gesture towards greater changes happening in modern art by the turn of the century. Sloan’s depiction of their facial makeup and modern fashions—above-the-ankle skirts and low necklines—has led researchers to suggest that they are prostitutes or “shop girls.” By this time, working as a salesclerk was a newly afforded profession for women; however, due to contemporary fears of prostitution, its public nature attached a negative connotation to the occupation. This fact adds a further dimension to the eye politics unfolding in the scene. The man behind these women could be “eyeing them up” with unsavory intentions, while the women sitting on the bench could be gossiping about their public lifestyle. Nevertheless, Sloan hints at these women’s pride in their modern freedom: they stride confidently through the park to the point where their clothes reveal the outline of their bodies.

In the end, Sloan elevates this everyday subject to the preeminent medium that has dominated Western art since the Renaissance—painting. These women are not royalty, nor are they prominent personages whose names have stood the test of time. Instead, they are women going about their life, displaying that even the most “ordinary” lives become extraordinary if we simply take the time to pay attention. Sunday Afternoon in Union Square is Sloan’s depiction of the city’s new dizzying landscape: a place of simultaneous interconnectedness, inspiration, and inspection. 

The painting comes to the Museum’s collection through George Otis Hamlin’s 1961 donation of nineteen paintings and 189 prints by John Sloan. Hamlin and his wife were close friends with the artist and his wife Dolly. At first, Sloan lent the Hamlin’s these paintings to decorate their New York apartment. However, fearing they’d be sold to other collectors, Hamlin bought them all in 1923. As a Maine native, Hamlin lived in Boothbay Harbor and frequently visited the museum. He donated his collection with the hope they’d be enjoyed by a community with less opportunity to see Sloan’s work compared to those in major cities. Today, the Hamlin Collection at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art is still the largest group of Sloan works owned by a single person or institution.

Sunday Afternoon in Union Square is on view in the exhibition Currents: Art Since 1875!

Marianna Zingone ’26
Summer Student Curatorial Assistant
Bowdoin College Museum of Art