Artist

Everett Shinn

born Woodstown, NJ 1876-died New York City 1953
Media - J0002178_1b.jpg - 89371
Everett Shinn, © Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum J0002178
Born
Woodstown, New Jersey, United States
Died
New York, New York, United States
Active in
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Nationalities
  • American
Biography

Painter, illustrator and decorator. A member of The Eight, Shinn created a significant body of work in murals for private homes as well as for theaters; he often depicted life in the slums, café society and theater events.

Joan Stahl American Artists in Photographic Portraits from the Peter A. Juley & Son Collection (Washington, D.C. and Mineola, New York: National Museum of American Art and Dover Publications, Inc., 1995)

Artist Biography

Born in Woodstown, New Jersey, Everett Shinn was a painter, illustrator, and muralist best known for his theatrical and urban subjects. He spent the last decade of the nineteenth century studying art in Philadelphia, first at the Spring Garden Institute (1891–93), then with Thomas Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where his work was exhibited in 1899, 1901, and 1902. Shinn also worked as an illustrator/reporter for several newspapers and magazines in Philadelphia and New York, including the Philadelphia Press, New York World, Ainslee's magazine, and Harper's Weekly.

Around 1900, Shinn's interest turned to painting, and he became associated with the group of artists known as the Ashcan School. He continued his work as an illustrator, but also received two important mural commissions: one for the Stuyvesant Theatre in New York City in 1907, and another for City Hall in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1911. Shinn's interest in theater led to work as an art director on films such as Sam Goldwyn's Polly of the Circus (1917). Among the many institutions where Shinn exhibited his paintings and drawings were the Whitney Museum of American Art (1937) and the Art Institute of Chicago (1939), which awarded him the Waston F. Blair Prize at the 18th Annual Watercolor Exhibition. He was a member of the National Academy of Design and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Joann Moser Singular Impressions: The Monotype in America (Washington, D.C. and London: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1997)

Exhibitions

A painting of a woman sitting down and reading 'Le Figaro'
Special Installation of Nineteen American Masterworks
April 17, 2015August 16, 2015
Integrated within the chronological flow of the museum’s permanent collection, these masterworks from Gilded Age, Impressionist, and Ashcan School painters will help to tell the story of the late 19th century and early 20th centuries in America, a “coming