He felt the term focused attention on social commentary rather than the style of the artistic vision and skill of the individual artists. He wanted his art recognized for his brushwork, color and composition, not as a muckraking voyeur of the lower classes.

Sloan never thought his politics had anything to do with his art. Although he was a socialist, he insisted his paintings had no social consciousness. He said, "I was never interested in putting propaganda into my paintings, so it annoys me when art historians try to interpret my city life pictures as 'socially conscious.' I saw the everyday life of the people, and on the whole I picked out bits of joy in human life for my subject matter."

John French Sloan grew up in Philadelphia where he attended Central High School with fellow Ashcan painter William Glackens. Another classmate was Albert C. Barnes who gained great fortune in pharmaceuticals. He consequently became a major art collector, and today, the Barnes Collection Museum in Philadelphia is one of the nation's true artistic treasures.

Sloan joined the Socialist Party in 1910. He became the art editor of the The Masses and provided powerful anti-war and anti-capitalist drawings. Although he was good at it, he wasn't comfortable providing art used as propaganda. He soon resigned, but remained interested in left wing political causes. He was a pacifist and was opposed to America's entering World War I.

In 1914, Sloan began an 18 year career as teacher at the Art Students League.

He was a respected and feared teacher, known for his practical knowledge and integrity, but also for his caustic tongue. Because he had sold few paintings in his career, he told his students "I have nothing to teach you that will help you to make a living."

His advice to artists was to find joy in the creative process alone.

Beginning in 1919 and every summer thereafter until 1949, Sloan would spend four months each summer painting in Sante Fe, New Mexico. The desert gave him focus and the opportunity to concentrate on form. He and his wife Dolly developed an interest in Native American culture and arts, and became an advocate for Indian artists.

He also came to know Diego Rivera whom he called "the one artist on this continent who is in the class of the old masters."

Sloan cofounded The Society of Independent Artists in 1916. He was instrumental in arranging the first showing the work of Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco in 1920.

As a painter, Sloan labored over his work. While working as an illustrator for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Sloan would lose plum reporting assignments because he couldn't render a sketch as quickly as his colleague and friend William Glackens.

Robert Henri used to describe Sloan as not only being slow, but being "the past participle of slow." He was most methodical in both his sketching and painting.

A student said of Sloan's paintings, "he concerned himself with what we call genre: street scenes, restaurant life, paintings of saloons, ferry boats, roof tops, back yards, and so on through a whole catalogue of commonplace subjects." In his diary, Sloan wrote, "I am in the habit of watching every bit of human life I can see about my windows, but I do it so that I am not observed at it ... No insult to the people you are watching to do so unseen."

By the late 1920's, Sloan could have made a good living from his painting. All he needed to do was continue his now popular paintings of urban life. But, in a manner typical to Sloan, he abandoned the easily successful for a new challenge. Although it displeased his art dealer Charles Kraushaar, he abandoned his earlier style and technique, choosing instead to paint using underpainting and glazing used by the old masters. Instead of urban scenes, he now painted nudes and portraits, but never achieved the popularity of his early Ashcan works.

Today, we all know the New York of yesterday, the New York shown to us through the paintings of John French Sloan. If Sloan were able to see how he is remembered today, he probably wouldn't like it. But one of the kindnesses of death is one does not get to know how one is remembered.

Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup Cans caused a sensation in the art world, with the artist becoming an icon himself. Riding this wave of success, he followed with portraits of famous stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. Consequently, Warhol's star rose high. He socialized with the likes of Jackie Kennedy Onasis and Truman Capote, leading to many commissions with wealthy socialites and stars.

Totally unrelated to the kind of iconic success achieved by Warhol, Kara Walker tells the American story ... in black and white. Her striking iconic silhouettes of characters cut from black paper displayed on a white background are striking and challenging. Hilton Als in the 2007 issue of the New Yorker wrote, "“In Walker’s work, slavery is a nightmare from which no American has yet awakened: bondage, ownership, the selling of bodies for power and cash have made twisted figures of blacks and whites alike, leaving us all scarred, hateful, hated, and diminished.”

Ed Ruscha's created deadpan representations of Hollywood logos, stylized gas stations and stylized landscapes, all imagery of popular culture in accessible and profound cinematic codes.

Robert Indiana's best known image is the word LOVE in upper-case letters, arranged in a square

with a tilted letter O. The iconography first appeared in a series of poems originally written in 1958, in which Indiana staked LO and VE on top of one another. It next appeared in a painting with the words "Love is God." The red/green/blue image was then created for a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art in 1964. It was put on an eight cent U.S. Postal Service postage stamp in 1973, the first of their regular series of "love stamps."

Alexander Calder is best known as the originator of the mobile, a kinetic sculpture of delicately balanced components which move in response to air currents. Pictured here are some component shapes.

Roy Lichtenstein was a leading member of a group of artists leading the Pop Art Movement of the 1960's along with Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist. Lichtenstein believed that all communication is filtered through codes or languages. This is why he chose mechanical reproduction using dots and lines.

Jeff Koons explores ideas of taste, pleasure, celebrity and commerce. He said, "I believe in advertisement and media completely. My art and my personal life are based in it."

As early as the 1950's, Robert Rauschenberg anticipated the pop art movement. He once said, he wanted his work "in the gap between art and life." Today, he is labeled a "neo Dadaist," along with Jasper Johns.

Beginning in 1962, Rauschenberg's paintings began to incorporate objects and images transferred to his canvas by means of a silk screen process.

Barbara Kruger addressed cultural constructions of power, identity and sexuality by overlaying images by pronouns or nouns. She said, "I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are and who we aren't."

Mel Ramos was born in Sacramento where the Crocker Museum held an exhibition of his work in 2012. He was a student of Wayne Thiebaud and is best known as a figurative painter, especially for his female nudes which incorporate realist and abstract elements. He was first recognized in the 1960's along with Andy Warhol and Roy Lichenstein. Reflecting back on his career, he said, "In 1960 I was wallowing in despair when I gave up painting abstract expressionism and painted something that I used to love as a kid, American Super Heroes, and I did a painting of Superman. My life changed, Pop Art was born and I was caught up in the energy of it all."

Although Jim Dine's work is synonymous with Pop Art, he doesn't consider himself as such. He said, "I'm not a Pop artist. I'm not part of a movement because I'm too subjective. Pop is concerned with exteriors. I'm concerned with interiors."

Portland ad director Jim Riswold quit advertising to dedicate himself to art after he had been diagnosed with leukemia. Most of his work pokes fun at historically taboo figures, picturing them with everyday items, making them seem childish, small and trifling.

Bruce Nauman worked as an assistant for Wayne Thiebaud and taught at the San Francisco Art Institute. Since the mid 80's, he has worked primarily with sculpture and video. He has developed disturbing psychological and physical themes incorporating images of animal and human body parts.

Deborah Oropallo received her MFA degree from Berkeley. Her work is rooted in painting but achieves her effects using camera, computer, printer and paint. She seeks to create a fusion of time and place, form and content. The resulting images possess random distortions. When superimposed images conflict, all kinds of comparisons, contrasts and insights come to mind.

Emerging from the skateboard scene, street activist and artist Shepard Fairey created some posters supporting Barack Obama in 2008. His "Hope" poster was well received. New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl called the poster "the most efficacious American political illustration since "Uncle Sam Want's You." Originally, the poster was made with the word "Progress." The campaign (not associated with the poster) contacted Fairey and requested he issue a new version with the word "Hope."

This exhibition certainly helps wrestle with the question of what "Icon" means in the context of contemporary society and art, but in no way comes close to capturing it. And that is a good thing. Perhaps in the end, one of the roles of art is to encourage us to look at ourselves.

And then, he confided to me that Swinnerton had been one of his boyhood idols, and he felt it a rare privilege to be the companion of one who had won so high a place in the world of art. "It's fun to go sketching with Jimmy," he said. And we both realized this was an understatement.

Those trips with James Swinnerton and other top-notch western painters are the climax of a long hard pull along the road of art for William P. Krehm. He has overcome obstacles which would have discouraged and perhaps beaten a less determined man.

In 1937 William Krehm the budding artist and top-notch frame maker met James Swinnerton his childhood idol who in the meantime had taken up serious painting and was bringing the desert into the galleries and homes all over the United States. This meeting must have been a distinct thrill even though at first their common interest was limited to picture frames. It was not long before a friendship developed, for Jimmy is that sort of a person. The friendship led to sketching trips and informal instruction that were invaluable to Krehm. Swinnerton with his background of 40 years of desert painting could see a great deal more in the desert than most artists and he was willing and eager to teach his friend how to see these things too, and to put them on canvas.

His pictures were exhibited at the San Francisco fair, and have been hung in a number of the state fairs and in lesser shows. Art critics who saw these few paintings have been more than favorable in their comments. Now Krehm has his real chance.

Our Gallery Hours are from 12:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M., Wednesday through Sunday. We are also available for scheduled appointments, especially for those who wish to view the gallery on Mondays or Tuesdays. Please call Dan at the gallery and schedule a visit, or call him on his cellphone, 510-414-9821

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art