Signed and dated, l.l.
Pastel and watercolor on artistboard
23 x 17 inches

Provenance
Condé Nast Publications, New York, until mid-1980s
Gift from the above to Mrs. Doreen Simmons, New York

Literature
Vanity Fair, June 1916, illus. on cover
“The Early Years: 1914-1936,” Vanity Fair, March 1999, p. 152, illus.

Note: Condé Nast Publications commissioned Everett Shinn to create this artwork for the cover of the June 1916 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. A label affixed to the artwork’s reverse reads: “VF 1916 June Shinn, E. / Couple Sitting among Lanterns”. Handwritten inscriptions on the reverse read: “June 1916” and “17½ x 23 / #81”.

Displaying an early aptitude for drawing coupled with a strong interest in mechanics, Shinn left his small hometown of Woodstown, New Jersey for the Spring Garden Institute in Pennsylvania at the age of fifteen. After two years of technical study, Shinn gained employment designing gas light fixtures, a vocation which quickly bored the bright young man. Shinn’s sheets of fixture designs were cluttered with various unrelated drawings, such as the view of Broad Street from his drafting table. When the impressive doodles were inevitably discovered by the foreman, duly impressed by the drawings, he suggested Shinn pursue art school. Following his supervisor’s advice, Shinn eventually enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in the fall of 1893.

For fear of losing his father’s financial support, Shinn simultaneously secured an illustrator’s position at the Philadelphia Press. This is when Shinn’s first artistic style clearly emerges. He befriended fellow illustrator, George Luks, and decided to share an apartment. They soon learned of Robert Henri’s Tuesday evening art discussions, where they subsequently met William Glackens and John Sloan. In 1897, Shinn left to work for The New York World. Henri, Glackens, and Luks joined him soon after, with Sloan arriving in New York in 1904.

Shinn landed the prestigious center page spread of Harper’s Weekly in 1900. During this period, Shinn often depicted the coarse, gritty urban scene of New York. He also traveled to Europe at this time, where he was enchanted by the lively London music halls and moody Parisian street scenes. As Shinn experienced greater monetary and critical success, he became increasingly interested in the theatrical world, building a small theater in his home and producing a number of plays. By 1908, the year of The Eight’s first exhibition at the MacBeth Gallery in New York, Shinn’s pictures were almost exclusively devoted to the stage. Over the next fifteen years, Shinn’s work lost its sense of spontanaeity and became more decorative and stylized, but by the mid 1920s, Shinn returned to his lively depictions of New York and its inhabitants. Over the next thirty years, he created some of his most impressive masterpieces, capturing the vibrant spirit of the city.