The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, is defined as a realist

American realism

300px|thumb|[[Ashcan School]] artists & friends at [[John French Sloan]]'s Philadelphia Studio, 1898American realism was an early 20th century idea in art, music and literature that showed through these different types of work, reflections of the time period...

 artistic movement

Art movement

An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time, or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years...

 that came into prominence in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 during the early twentieth century, best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

's poorer neighborhoods. The movement grew out of a group known as The Eight, whose only show together in 1908 created a sensation. Its members included five painters later associated with the Ashcan School: William Glackens

William Glackens

William James Glackens was an American realist painter.Glackens studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later moved to New York City, where he co-founded what came to be called the Ashcan School art movement...

 (1870-1938), Robert Henri

Robert Henri

Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School in art.- Early life :...

 (1865-1929), George Luks

George Luks

George Benjamin Luks, was an American realist artist and illustrator. His vigorously painted genre paintings of urban subjects are examples of the Ashcan school in American art.-Early life:...

 (1867-1933), Everett Shinn

Everett Shinn

Everett Shinn was an American realist painter and member of the Ashcan School, also known as 'the Eight.' He was the youngest member of the group of modernist painters who explored the depiction of real life...

 (1876-1953) and John French Sloan

John French Sloan

John French Sloan was an American artist. As a member of The Eight, he became a leading figure in the Ashcan School of realist artists. He was known for his urban genre painting and ability to capture the essence of neighborhood life in New York City, often through his window...

 (1871-1951). They had met studying together under Thomas Pollock Anshutz

Thomas Pollock Anshutz

Thomas Pollock Anshutz was an American painter and teacher. Co-founder of The Darby School and leader at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Anshutz was known for his award winning portraiture work and working friendship with Thomas Eakins.-Personal life and education:Thomas Anshutz was born in...

 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is a museum and art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1805 and is the oldest art museum and school in the United States. The academy's museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th and 20th century American paintings,...

. Other members of The Eight were Arthur B. Davies

Arthur B. Davies

Arthur Bowen Davies was an avant-garde American artist and patron.-Biography:He was born in Utica, New York and studied at the Chicago Academy of Design from 1879 to 1882...

 (1862-1928), Ernest Lawson

Ernest Lawson

Ernest Lawson was a Canadian-American painter and a member of The Eight, a group of artists which included the group's leaders Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, George Luks, and William J. Glackens...

 (1873-1939) and Maurice Prendergast

Maurice Prendergast

Maurice Brazil Prendergast was an American Post-Impressionist artist who worked in oil, watercolor, and monotype...

 (1859-1924), whose work diverged from the Ashcan School in style.

Origin with The Eight

"The Eight" was a group of artists, many of whom had experience as newspaper illustrators in Philadelphia, who exhibited as a group at the Macbeth Gallery in New York in 1908. The show, which created a sensation, subsequently toured the US under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The Eight are remembered as a group because of the impact of their only show, despite the fact that their work was diverse in terms of style and subject matter: only five of the artists (Henri, Sloan, Glackens, Shinn, and Luks) painted the gritty urban scenes that characterized the Ashcan School.

As noted, the Ashcan School was not an organized group. Their unity consisted of a desire to tell some truths about the city. Robert Henri "wanted art to be akin to journalism. He wanted paint to be as real as mud, as the clods of horse-shit and snow, that froze on Broadway

Broadway (New York City)

Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...

 in the winter." The first known use of the "ash can" terminology in describing the movement was by Art Young

Art Young

Arthur "Art" Young was an American cartoonist and writer. He is most famous for his socialist cartoons, especially those drawn for the left wing political magazine The Masses between 1911 and 1917.-Early Years:...

, in 1916. The term was later applied to a group of artists who portrayed urban subject matter, primarily of New York's working class neighborhoods. These included Robert Henri

Robert Henri

Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School in art.- Early life :...

, George Bellows

George Bellows

George Wesley Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City, becoming, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".-Youth:Bellows was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio...

, Arnold Franz Brasz

Arnold Franz Brasz

Arnold Franz Brasz was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker who was born in Polk County, Wisconsin on July 19, 1888. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts and also with Robert Henri in New York. By the early 1920s, he was dividing his time between southern California and...

, Mabel Dwight, William Glackens

William Glackens

William James Glackens was an American realist painter.Glackens studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later moved to New York City, where he co-founded what came to be called the Ashcan School art movement...

, Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...

, George Luks

George Luks

George Benjamin Luks, was an American realist artist and illustrator. His vigorously painted genre paintings of urban subjects are examples of the Ashcan school in American art.-Early life:...

, Everett Shinn

Everett Shinn

Everett Shinn was an American realist painter and member of the Ashcan School, also known as 'the Eight.' He was the youngest member of the group of modernist painters who explored the depiction of real life...

, John French Sloan

John French Sloan

John French Sloan was an American artist. As a member of The Eight, he became a leading figure in the Ashcan School of realist artists. He was known for his urban genre painting and ability to capture the essence of neighborhood life in New York City, often through his window...

, and others such as photographer Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis

Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...

. Bellows, Brasz and Hopper were students of Henri. (Despite his inclusion in the group by some critics, Hopper rejected their focus; his depictions of city streets were nearly free of the usual details, "with not a single incidental ashcan in sight.")

The artists of the Ashcan School rebelled against American Impressionism

American Impressionism

Impressionism, a style of painting characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors, was practiced widely among American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-An emerging artistic style from Paris:...

, which was the vanguard of American art at the time. In contrast to its emphasis of light, their works were generally dark in tone, capturing harsher moments of life and often portraying such subjects as prostitutes

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

, drunks

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

, butchered pigs, overflowing tenement

Tenement

A tenement is, in most English-speaking areas, a substandard multi-family dwelling, usually old, occupied by the poor.-History:Originally the term tenement referred to tenancy and therefore to any rented accommodation...

s with laundry hanging on lines, boxing

Boxing

Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

 matches, and wrestlers

Wrestling

Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...

. It was their frequent, although not total, focus upon poverty

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

 and the daily realities of urban life that prompted American critics to consider them on the fringe of modern art

Modern art

Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...

.