JOHN SLOAN (1871-1951)

The present work is the first painting John Sloan completed in New York City. He moved from Philadelphia in 1904, settling into the Sherwood Building where fellow painter Robert Henri lived. The model for the present work, Eugenie "Zenka" Stein was painted by both artists and appears in Henri's Young Woman in White, also of 1904, in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Helen Farr Sloan writes, "Sloan felt that this portrait of Stein standing in profile was an important example of his early New York paintings. He was, in a way, proud that the 1907 jury of National Academy 'fired' this picture. The rejection of work by Sloan, Glackens, Luks, Shinn—and Henri too—became the reason for organization of the Eight exhibition at Macbeth Gallery in 1908." (unpublished letter, June 22, 1983)