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Everett Shinn
1876–1953
BirthplaceWoodstown, New Jersey, United States of America
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BiographyEverett Shinn ranks as one of the most versatile and talented of The Eight, the group of independent-minded artists who exhibited together just after the turn of the twentieth century. Shinn was born into a Quaker family in Woodstown, New Jersey. As a boy he showed a talent for drawing and mechanical invention, and he was sent to the Spring Garden Institute, a technical school in Philadelphia. Bored at his first job drawing chandeliers for a manufacturer of lighting fixtures, in 1893 Shinn enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and found work as a graphic artist at a Philadelphia newspaper. He soon met the other newspaper artists with whom he would eventually form The Eight, and preceded them in moving to New York City, where his famed skills as a lightning-fast illustrator were in demand. Shinn drew the first color pictures for the center spread of the popular journal Harper’s Weekly, and he went on to illustrate twenty-eight books and over ninety magazine stories.
Through his friendship with the noted architect Stanford White, Shinn was given a solo exhibition of his drawings at a New York gallery in 1899. His pastel drawings depicted the backstreets and slums of the city, subjects he shared with other members of The Eight, critically dubbed the Ashcan School. In 1900, in the company of friend and fellow Ashcan artist George Luks, Shinn traveled to Paris and London. The music halls and vaudeville theaters Shinn visited there fed his passion for the stage, to which he devoted his art almost exclusively by 1908. In that year, he exhibited with The Eight in their famous exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery, but his association with the group waned as he became increasingly involved in the world of the theater.
In addition to painting murals and designing stage sets, Shinn wrote, directed, and acted in numerous plays; he even had a working stage built in his spacious Manhattan studio. He drew and painted images of music halls and theaters that were informed by his experience and by the theater and café-concert images of French painters Jean-Louis Forain (1852–1931) and Edgar Degas (1834–1917). Shinn ceased regularly exhibiting his art by 1913, and in 1917 he moved to Hollywood, California, to work as a movie set designer and art director. Between his return to New York in 1923 and his death three decades later, Shinn continued to paint and illustrate the theater as well as the city and its inhabitants. The longest-lived and most mercurial of the original Eight, Shinn was also one of its more critically successful members. His paintings were widely exhibited, and his illustrations were always in high demand.
Through his friendship with the noted architect Stanford White, Shinn was given a solo exhibition of his drawings at a New York gallery in 1899. His pastel drawings depicted the backstreets and slums of the city, subjects he shared with other members of The Eight, critically dubbed the Ashcan School. In 1900, in the company of friend and fellow Ashcan artist George Luks, Shinn traveled to Paris and London. The music halls and vaudeville theaters Shinn visited there fed his passion for the stage, to which he devoted his art almost exclusively by 1908. In that year, he exhibited with The Eight in their famous exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery, but his association with the group waned as he became increasingly involved in the world of the theater.
In addition to painting murals and designing stage sets, Shinn wrote, directed, and acted in numerous plays; he even had a working stage built in his spacious Manhattan studio. He drew and painted images of music halls and theaters that were informed by his experience and by the theater and café-concert images of French painters Jean-Louis Forain (1852–1931) and Edgar Degas (1834–1917). Shinn ceased regularly exhibiting his art by 1913, and in 1917 he moved to Hollywood, California, to work as a movie set designer and art director. Between his return to New York in 1923 and his death three decades later, Shinn continued to paint and illustrate the theater as well as the city and its inhabitants. The longest-lived and most mercurial of the original Eight, Shinn was also one of its more critically successful members. His paintings were widely exhibited, and his illustrations were always in high demand.