Floyd Dell

Inscriptions

Signed, upper left: John Sloan; inscribed and dated, upper right: FLOYD DELL / 1914; inscribed, on reverse, tacking margin: FLOYD DELL. Signed and inscribed, on stretcher: Portrait of Floyd Dell / --John Sloan--. Inscribed by Helen Farr Sloan, on stretcher: VARNISH: WEBER PICTURE COPAL 1951 - HFS / WAX FINISH. Inscribed by dealer on stretcher: K373 35#160 Coll HFS. Inscribed by Helen Farr Sloan on stretcher: Presented to / John Sloan Dickey / 1951. Label on tacking: #160. Label on reverseL KRAUSHAAR GALLERIES, New York, no. k. 373.

Label

This portrait reflects the radical change in Sloan’s portrait style that took place after the 1913 Armory Show in New York. That exhibition introduced him to the work of such Post-Impressionist and Fauve artists as Vincent van Gogh and Henri Matisse, whose stylistic influence can be seen here in Sloan’s broad, loose brushwork and bold palette, qualities also evident in his exuberant decoration of the frame. The portrait’s daring color scheme is especially suited to the subject, Floyd Dell, who served as managing editor of the leftist literary magazine The Masses from 1914 until its demise in 1917. This publication featured illustrations by major urban realists, including Sloan, who joined the staff of the magazine as art editor in 1914, the year he painted Dell’s portrait. Dell was known not only for his revolutionary politics, but also for his bohemian lifestyle, which is perhaps suggested here by his slightly rumpled, colorful attire.

From the 2019 exhibition American Art, Colonial to Modern, curated by Barbara J. MacAdam, Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art

Course History

SART 25, SART 31, SART 72, Painting I, II, III, Thomas Ferrara, Winter 2012

SART 25.01, Painting I, Danielle Genadry, Summer 2022

Exhibition History

American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-December 9, 2007.

American Art, Colonial to Modern, Israel Sack Gallery and Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-September 12, 2021.

American Paintings from the Dartmouth Collection, 1910-1960, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 17-April 12, 1998.

American Viewpoints: Painting and Sculpture from the Hood Museum of Art, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, California, May 5-August 31, 2003.

John Sloan: Paintings, Prints, Drawings, Jaffe-Friede, Strauss and Barrows Galleries, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 2, 1981-January 3, 1982; DeCordova and Dana Museum and Park, Lincoln, Massachusetts, January 23-March 7, 1982; Kalamazoo,Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, Michigan, March 18-May 2, 1982; Elvehjem Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin, June 12-August 1, 1982; Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio, September 11-October 24, 1982; Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, New York, Noverber 6, 1982-January 2, 1983.

Making Faces: A Selection of Portraits by John Sloan, The Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Georgia, May 1-November 15, 2001.

Portraits at Dartmouth, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 10-April 16, 1978.

The Eight: A New Spirit in American Art, Danforth Museum, Framingham, Massachusetts, October 26, 1986-January 4, 1987.

Within Bohemia's Boarders: Greenwich Village 1830-1930, Museum of the City of New York, New York, September 10, 1990-June 9, 1991.

Publication History

Paul Buhle and Edmund B. Sullivan, Images of American Radicalism, Hanover: The Christopher Publishing House, 1998, 462 p., ill. p. 155

Douglas Clayton, Floyd Dell: The Life and Times of an American Rebel, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Inc., 1994, Cover Illustration!

Ethan Lewis, A Simpler Time: Floyd Dell's Life as a Radical and Socialist Editor (Book Review), Illinois Issues, Volume SSI, No. 7, July 1995, Springfield: University of Illinois, 1995, ill. p. 25

Rowland Elzea, John Sloan's Oil Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonne, Part I, Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1991, p. 154, no. 317.

Steven Watson, Strange Bedfellows: The First American Avant-Garde, New York: Abbeville Press, 1991, p. , no. .

Greenwich Village: Culture and Counterculture. Museum of the City of New York and New York University, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989, p.___.

-----, Art for the Masses: A Radical Magazine and its Graphics, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987, p.-----, no. 25.

John Sloan: Paintings, Prints, Drawings, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1982, ill. no. 6.

Arthur R. Blumenthal, Portraits at Dartmouth, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1978, p. 104.

Linda S. Ferber, Making Faces: A Selection of Portraits by John Sloan, Columbus & New York: The Columbus Museum and Kraushaar Galleries, Inc., 2001, p. 4, p. 6, ill. p. 13.

Steven Rosendale, American Radical and Reform Writers, First Series, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume Three Hundred Three, Detroit: Thomson/Gale, A Bruccolli Clark Layman Book, ill. p. 401.

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 85, no. 61.

Ron McCrea, Building Taliesin: Frank Lloyd Wright's Home of Love and Loss, Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2012: ill. p. 129, Fig. 109.

Provenance

The artist; Helen Farr Sloan; John Sloan Dickey; given to present collection, 1959.

Catalogue Raisonne

Elzea no. 317

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