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Article: ASHCAN REBELS; United around teacher Robert Henri and a desire to reflect even the grimiest urban reality, the Ashcan artists were aesthetic revolutionaries. A new show of their work disappoints.(VARIETY / FREETIME)
- Article from:
- Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
- Article date:
- November 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Star Tribune Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Mary Abbe; Staff Writer
Avant-gardists proliferate in every era, but few new movements retain enough frisson to strike sparks after their moment has passed.
Such is the case with the Ashcan School, a revolutionary group of young American artists who a century ago shocked the establishment with their individualism and defiantly urban art. Challenging the prevailing taste for sweet Impressionism and polite neoclassicism, the Ashcan group set out to report on real life in gritty cities crowded with immigrants and the struggling poor.
A century later, their work looks dour, amateurish and unfocused, at least in "Robert Henri and His ...