Ashcan School

American Ashcan, and specifically work of The Eight, plus George Bellows (Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, George Luks, and William J. Glackens), depicted the reality of life in a changing, diverse, cosmopolitan New York. Rough brushwork, bright colors, and tight cropping characterized gritty scenes of working class street life, labor, and entertainment, and were seen as a radical departure from the genteel American paintings that had defined the Gilded Age.