Sally, Kids and Philip Bathing. Etching. 152x101 mm; 6x4 inches, full margins. Third state (of 3). The deluxe artist's edition of 25, aside from the unsigned book edition of 1500. Signed and inscribed "25 JS Proofs" in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Charles S. White, New York. Published by the Limited Editions Club, New York. From Of Human Bondage. 1937.
A superb, well-inked impression. Morse 296.
This is from a deluxe illustrated edition of the 1915 novel by W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), generally agreed to be his masterpiece and to be strongly autobiographical in nature.
The WPA gave opportunities and financial help to many artists who were struggling during the Depression. Sloan, already an established artist and teacher at the Art Students League (who taught many artists who particapted in the WPA programs), did not fit that profile, but he did participate in the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, which hired well-known artists for its projects. He painted the mural The Arrival of the First Mail in Bronxville in 1846 for the post office in Bronxville, New York. He also created two paintings for the WPA, one The Wigwam, Old Tammany Hall, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the other Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue, originally hung the office of U.S. Senator Royal Copeland and now is exhibited at the Detroit Insitute of Arts.
