Looks at the group of urban realists known as the Ashcan School, and at the booming cultures of vision and representation in early twentieth-century New York. This book offers insights into the development of modern cities and modern art in America. It focuses attention on the materiality and design process of pictures.

The author scrutinizes all manner of visual activity, from the pandemonium of comics to the mise-en-scene of early movies, from the mark of an individual pen stroke to a glance on the street, from illustrators' manuals to ambitious paintings that became icons of American art. By situating the Ashcan School within its proper visual culture, Zurier opens up the question of what the artists' "realism" meant at a time when many other forms of representation, including journalism and cinema, were competing to define "real life" in New York City.

Introduction
Part One: The Setting
1. Another Look at the Ashcan School
2. Seeing New York: The Turn-of-the-Century Culture of Looking
3. A Walk through the City on Paper: The Tradition of the
Mobile Observer
Part Two: The Artists
4. Robert Henri and the Real Thing
5. The Reporter's Vision: Everett Shinn and the City as Spectacle
6. The Cartoonist's Vision (Part 1): William Glackens and the
Legible City
7. The Cartoonist's Vision (Part 2): Bellows, Luks, and Urban Difference
Part Three: John Sloan's Urban Vision
8. The Storyteller's Vision: John Sloan and the Limits of
Visual Knowledge
Conclusion: The Legacy of the Ashcan School
Notes
Selected Bibliography
List of Illustrations
Index.