Ashcan School

The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the United States during the late 19th-early 20th century that produced works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city's poorer neighborhoods. The movement, which took some inspiration from Walt Whitman's 1855 epic poem Leaves of Grass, has been seen as emblematic of the spirit of political rebellion of the period. The artists working in this style included Robert Henri, George Luks, William Glackens, John Sloan, and Everett Shinn. Some of them met studying together under the realist Thomas Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; others met in the newspaper offices of Philadelphia where they worked as illustrators. Theresa Bernstein, who studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, was also a part of the Ashcan School. She was friends with many of its better-known members, including Sloan with whom she co-founded the Society of Independent Artists.