#robert smullyan sloan

[rossodimarte]

Robert Smullyan Sloan, African American Soldier, 1945

[nebylitsa]

robert smullyan sloan / jankel adler

[baberoe-archive]

hiiiii everyone im going to make you look at art <3 okay <3

first up we got two photos from august sander's people of the twentieth century, a decades long project he never finished aimed at identifying and organizing the "types" of people in early twentieth century germany. in photos for this project he usually identified people along socio-economic and geographic lines. on the left we have officer, world war i, cologne (1914) and on the right we have boxers, cologne (1928). museum had a bunch of sander on display and they paired it with the shortcut to the systematic life: superficial life (2002) by tsui kuang-yu, which is outside the scope of this post but super interesting so i encourage everyone to look it up lol

up next: the junkers officer (1934) by george grosz, another artist associated with neue sachlichkeit/new objectivity. im not well versed in german art but recently i have been so intrigued by leftist art of the weimar republic and it felt simply serendipitous. unfortunately by the time i saw this the museum was closing in 15 minutes so i had to rush out </3 SAD

this is air war (1944) by ralston crawford. first time i heard of this artist! during wwii he served as chief of the visual presentation unit of the weather division of the army air corps in washington dc and southeast asia.

negro soldier (1945) by robert smullyan sloan. sloan was drafted in 43 and illustrated army educational materials and posters for war bonds. the wall label says the title was given by the artist, which makes me think sloan didn't personally know this guy, which makes me very curious about the circumstances of its production. no name is given to the sitter, but he served in the european-african-middle eastern campaign in the army and was awarded a good conduct medal. sloan has a drawing at the met (station hospital [1943-44] ), but unfortunately i can't find much else about him online that might help contextualize this painting.

i think it pairs really well with this horace pippin from 1943 called mr. prejudice. pippin served in wwi with the harlem hellfighters, and the soldier at center might be a self portrait. he has a pretty good amount of paintings about the war actually -- i normally associate him with landscapes for some reason, though i think thats just because the pippin at my local art museum is a landscape lmao. his illustrated war journals are digitized at the archives of american art if you want to check it out!

up next are some pieces of interest that i want to share but about which i otherwise have little to say

L: untitled (military maneuvers at an abandoned mine) (1940-42) by harry gottlieb

R: italy goes to war (1941) by arthur dove

L: christ before pilate (1949) by david aronson. wall text wants us to note the soldier's helmet is german

R: the funeral (1949) by francisco dosamantes

ending with this delightful 1914 the wrestlers by henri gaudier-brzeska, whom the label quotes as saying, "i went to see the wrestlers -- God! i have seldom seen anything so lovely... they fought with amazing vivacity and spirit, turning in the air, falling back on their heads, and in a flash were up again on the other side, utterly incomprehensible." something about wrestling/boxing that make men gay as fuck. beautiful

[silezukuk]

Robert Smullyan Sloan - Negro Soldier, 1945 // https://tinyurl.com/y8lmo9ue

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Negro Soldier by Robert Smullyan Sloan, 1945, USA.

[somanyhumanbeings]

Robert Smullyan Sloan, Negro Soldier (1945)

[joshuaoliveira]

Soldado , 1945

Robert Smullyan Sloan

[micmol]

Negro soldier, Robert Smullyan Sloan (detail) #artist #portrait #portraitpainting #instaportrait #portraitpainting #paintings #oilpainting #harvardfoggmuseum #foggmuseum #bostonmuseums #boston #greatart (at Harvard Art Museums)