Here we have a stunning Ashcan oil painting of a regular Joe in a leather jacket and a flaring alcoholic nose. This is right at the start of the roaring 1920s, but this is the social realism of the commoners as opposed to the high class hob nobbers. And that's why it's in my possession. The hand of this artist is killer because the detail is unreal. Then you have the dude wearing a 1920s leather jacket that I want to own as well. I'm fine with this for now. I imagine this dude transferring his spirit to Charles Bukowski, straight from skid row.
The Ashcan oil on board is signed "A.F. Kent" and dated 1922 in the bottom right corner. The artist is still a mystery to me, which blows my mind given the quality. The painting comes out of a collector's estate in Chicago.
Here's some more information about the Ashcan School, courtesy of
Wikipedia:
The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the United States during the late 19th-early 20th century[1] that is best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city's poorer neighborhoods.
The Ashcan School was not an organized movement. The artists who worked in this style did not issue manifestos or even see themselves as a unified group with identical intentions or career goals. Some were politically minded, and others were apolitical. Their unity consisted of a desire to tell certain truths about the city and modern life they felt had been ignored by the suffocating influence of the Genteel Tradition in the visual arts. Robert Henri, in some ways the spiritual father of this school, "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 in the winter." He urged his younger friends and students to paint in the robust, unfettered, ungenteel spirit of his favorite poet, Walt Whitman, and to be unafraid of offending contemporary taste. He believed that working-class and middle-class urban settings would provide better material for modern painters than drawing rooms and salons. Having been to Paris and admired the works of Edouard Manet, Henri also urged his students to ‘’paint the everyday world in America just as it had been done in France."
The 1920s painting measures 20" tall by 16" wide. There is some light wear along the edges and in the corners. On the reverse there is evidence of another painting with losses. A solid, solid piece. Please see all pics as they are part of the description.
I ship FedEx to street addresses in the continental USA only (no PO boxes). Free shipping on the Ashcan portrait painting.
This is a portrait painting for the Down and Outs. And then the alcoholic nose....I mean, c'mon. Social Realism at its very best.
