Everett Shinn - Philadelphia

Philadelphia

Shinn left Woodstown at the age of fourteen and enrolled at a technical institution known as the Spring Garden Institute in Philadelphia from 1888-1890. The school specialized in the teaching of mechanical drawing and architecture and was also attended by fellow member of ‘The Eight,’ John Sloan. Following his education, Shinn spent a year working at the Thackery Gas Fixture Works designing light fixtures. After being fired for doodling in the margins of his plans, his former employer urged him to go into a more creative field, citing the newspaper and magazine industries as examples.

He began his work for the Philadelphia Press in 1893 as an illustrator. Many, including Shinn, consider this the true beginning of his art career. In later years, Shinn would express his great dismay over the development of photography as the major source of pictorials in newspapers because it eventually largely replaced his form of art. He continually moved from paper to paper for the rest of his illustrating career, receiving a pay increase with each move. The attention to detail necessary for his newspaper illustrations is reflected in his style and later paintings, especially those of urban nature. In 1899, he quit the newspaper business and began working for Ainslee's Magazine, a magazine that also employed his wife, who was by that time a very successful illustrator and who brought in a good deal of the household income. Shinn also started displaying his work publicly in 1899 with mixed reactions. In 1900, he and Flossie traveled to Europe for him study and prepare to produce another exhibit. The trip greatly influenced his art in years to come during his visit, he saw European art that was focused on theatrical portrayals, as well as impressionist works.

Shinn has said of his experience at the Philadelphia Press:

"In the Art Department of the Philadelphia Press on wobbling, ink-stained drawing boards William J. Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shin and John Sloan went to school, a school now lamentably extinct…a school that trained memory and quick perception."

It was during Shinn's time in Philadelphia that artists John Sloan and Joseph Laub established the Charcoal Club as an alternative art school. The group, whose members were members of 'the Eight' such as Henri, Sloan, Glackens, Luks and Shinn, reached a peak membership of 38 and sketched nudes and did critiques of each others work. The club is often thought of as the establishing point of the Philadelphia group, later known as ‘The Eight’.