Gray Day, Jersey Coast (Primary Title)
John Sloan, American, 1871–1951 (Artist)
This painting marks a departure from the artist’s typical urban scenes. Boldly rendered in broad brushstrokes, three figures in a boat are framed by three dull-colored horizontal bands forming the sky, sea, and beach. The dreary palette lends the image a quiet air that belies its lighthearted inspiration. While he and the young painter Stuart Davis were walking the beach near Avon, New Jersey, they encountered a beached and decaying shipwreck. In the spirit of the moment, the artists nicked what they could. Sloan wrote: “Stuart and I worked like heroes and got two or three long keel bolts, solid copper, also some smaller copper spikes, bruised and banged up my tender feet and hands but I enjoyed this salvage very much.” The painting remained in the artist’s collection for the duration of his life.
James W. and Frances Gibson McGlothlin Collection
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