Nude on the Floor
John Sloan (1871-1954), Nude on the Floor, etching and engraving, 1931, signed, titled and annotated “100 proofs” [also signed in the plate]. Reference: Morse 257, third state (of 3), from the edition of 100 of which only 75 were printed, on cream laid paper, in excellent condition, with full margins, 4 x 5, the sheet 8 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches, archival mounting (non-adhesive mylar hinges, acid free board).
A fine fresh impression in pristine condition.
Sloan said of this print: “One of the best of this group of etchings. Shows my interest in achieving foreshortening without perspective. …If I had done fifty plates as good, there would be something the matter. This kind of merit might become very monotonous. I might become a skilled craftsman….I have been playing around with the graver lately. It is very amusing and I like the clean severe line you can get with it. It is quite difficult to control a curved line, that is, to get something that isn’t just an ordinary curve. This plate of the Nude on the Floor has a great deal of graved work in it. These sets of graved lines have something that etched lines don’t have – a different tone.”
At this stage in his career, after the Ashcan Realist period and now in his late ’50s, Sloan experimented with new approaches to painting and drawing based on his study of Goya, Rembrandt, and Renoir – whose works were now accessible in New York. He developed a grid-line approach to his work, using his etched (and here also engraved) nudes to explore the concept. Viewed in this aesthetic context, we can appreciate Sloan’s nudes as achievements which transcend – artistically – the popular New York subjects that he did in earlier years, and demonstrate convincingly Sloan’s importance as an artist, not just a chronicler of a period.