The Clean, Open Air of John Sloan’s Tenement Paintings

Abstract

In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century New York, open-air spaces between or above buildings became contested zones. Motivated by concerns about public health, Progressive Era reformers advocated for legislation that preserved and, in some cases, created these spaces. This objectification marked these spaces as newly valuable: they provided access to salutary sunlight and fresh air, and became central to the reformers’ vision for a cleaner, more spacious, and ultimately whiter city. The Ashcan artist John Sloan frequently depicted these spaces and the labor and leisure that they fostered. Drawing on urban and environmental history, this article returns to the original locations of Sloan’s scenes, unpacking the gendered, classed, and racialized experiences of urban air that were encoded but not always overtly pictured. By rendering the environment bright, airy, and relatively decongested, Sloan’s art reified the reformers’ aims, presenting the city scrubbed of sights—and people—he did not wish to see.