Anshutz on Anatomy

Anshutz on Anatomy depicts Thomas Anshutz, John French Sloan’s influential instructor from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, lecturing on anatomy to Robert Henri’s students at the New York School of the Art in 1905. Several members of the Ashcan School are visibly present, including Walter Pach, William Glackens, Maurice Prendergast, and George Bellow. Students hunch over their hurried sketches, huddled in a dimly lit room. On a stage, Anshutz stands, gesturing next to a skeleton and male model. Addressing this etching, Sloan notes, "Tom Anshutz, our old teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy, gave anatomical demonstrations of great value to art students. Modelling the muscles in clay, he would then fix them in place on the skeleton.”

Anshutz on Anatomy represents a transitional moment in Sloan’s life and work. In it he has chosen to depict members of the Ashcan School/The Eight, his instructors, whose profound teachings influenced him greatly, and his wife. While devoted to capturing the idle, anonymous New Yorker, here Sloan escapes the lower classes and depicts his colleagues and friends—members of a growing elite circle of artists and academics, whose visual commentary on the quotidian was prolific.