- Title
- The Show Case (aka Connoisseurage, and Critics on Form)
- Date Made
- 1905
- Medium
- Etching
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 9 1/4 × 11 3/8 in. (23.5 × 28.89 cm)
Image: 4 5/8 × 6 5/8 in. (11.75 × 16.83 cm)
- Accession Number
- 48.32.33
- Collecting Area
- Prints and Drawings
- Curatorial Notes
New York, New York: The City as Muse in American Art
September 19, 2003-February 18, 2004
Sloan’s penchant for spotting humorous scenes around New York was stoked by his recent move to the city in 1904 and grew out of his years of experience (from 1892 to 1903) as an artist-reporter illustrating Philadelphia newspapers. He was inspired to create a witty, even bawdy, group of prints in 1905 and 1906 called New York City Life. The set of ten etchings depicted subject matter then unfamiliar and offensive to the refined gallery-going public; when exhibited at the American Water Color Society exhibition in New York in March 1906, four were removed for being “vulgar” and “indecent.” The Show Case and Fun, One Cent (adjacent) remained on view, but an indignant Sloan placed the complete series in the window of a bookshop in protest and added a sign stating that “an incomplete set was shown at the American Water Color Society.”