A prominent figure in American art history, John Sloan was a distinguished painter and etcher in the first half of the twentieth century. Early in his career he worked as an illustrator for the thriving publishing business, contributing drawings to newspapers, magazines, and books. Though he considered his illustration work ancillary to his painting and largely as a source of income, he produced a significant body of illustrations numbering more than 950 drawings and etchings. His sympathetic portrayals of immigrants and working-class people, as well as his humorous renditions, were enjoyed by the popular-magazine readership.

John Sloan was born in Lock Haven, a small lumber town in the central Pennsylvania mountains. His father, John Dixon Sloan, worked in the family cabinetmaking and undertaker business and then as a portrait photographer. Sloan's mother, Henrietta Ireland, a schoolteacher, grew up in Philadelphia, where her father worked as a bookbinder. Sloan's paternal...