William Glackens

1870-1938

American Artist

Glackens was born in Philadelphia. With a keen eye and a natural gift for drawing, he landed a position as staff illustrator for several newspapers. At the same time, he took night classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In the spring of 1895, Glackens traveled eighteen months through France, Holland, and Belgium. This led in adapting for his own expressive ends the dark-toned, freely brushed method of those earlier Europeans. By the time he returned to America in late 1896, his was firmly rooted in the Impressionist style. His paintings focused on the life of the lower- and middle-classes, especially Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants, who lived in crowded tenements at the lower end of Manhattan. What is more obvious is the artist's interest in using his Impressionist style to suggest weather conditions-rain, snow, mud. After 1915 Glackens became most famous for his Impressionist still lifes and figure studies, which were often compared to those of the French Impressionist Pierre-August Renoir.