Our Featured Painting:
The Guitar
by George B. Luks (1867-1933)
Considered the most powerful of the New York Realists, George Luks painted a number of landscapes and marines, but he was first and foremost a figure painter. Indeed, his oeuvre is replete with images of people?not the genteel types featured in the work of the Impressionists, but humble, unidealized denizens of the lower-classes, ranging from waifs, elderly ladies and fortune-tellers to derelicts and able-bodied wrestlers. A humanist who sympathized with the common man, Luks once declared that ?A child of the slums will make a better painting than a drawing-room lady gone over by a beauty shop.? 1 These views were echoed by the scholar Lloyd Goodrich, who noted, Luks

enjoyed painting the least conventional aspects of the life around him . . . Humanity was the center of his art; he was interested in men and women more than in nature or his emotions. A spontaneous human sympathy pervaded everything he did and gave even his meanest subjects a warmth and glow that were entirely personal. 2

Luks?s love of life and his passion for portraying working-class people is exemplified in The Guitar, which features a man serenading a small child who sits on his lap. The title alludes to the instrument he plays, and by extension, to the joy of music. However, the image had a deeper, personal resonance for Luks, for it is also a portrait of his younger brother, Will (William D.) Luks (1868-1952), depicted here with one of his sons. 3

Music played a vital role in the lives of Luks and his brother. Along with three other siblings, they performed in musicales at home as children, encouraged in their endeavors by their mother, Bertha, herself an amateur musician and painter. Will proved to be especially gifted, emerging as a talented songwriter and vocalist; indeed, during the 1880s, he and George created their own act, known as ?Buzzy and Anstock,? in which they sang, told jokes, and played the guitar, performing with traveling minstrel shows throughout northeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The brothers?s musical careers came to an end when George decided to pursue an artistic vocation while Will followed in his physician-father?s footsteps and enrolled at Baltimore Medical College. A turning point in his life occurred in the final year of his program, when, on a visit to New York, he met and shortly thereafter married Anabelle Delanoy, who had been engaged to George. Rather than completing his studies, Will accepted a job as superintendent of the Northern Dispensary, a charitable clinic in New York?s Greenwich Village, retaining that position from 1897 until his retirement forty years later. Although George lost his fiancée to his brother, he remained close to Will and Anabelle for the rest of his life. 4

As was typical, Luks depicts his models against a plain backdrop, thus allowing the viewer to focus on their character and personality. He portrays the duo in coarse garb?a simple shirt and overalls for Will and a smock and cap for his son. The positioning of the figures, in which Will looks affectionately at his child, underscores the close bond between the pair. The chubby-faced baby, who leans forward, his tiny hands grasping the edges of the guitar, symbolizes the passage of a love of music from one generation to the next and, in view of the somewhat distressed demeanor, reminds us that ?For little children [Luks] had a genuine affection and humorous understanding.? 5

Of all the New York Realists?a group that included Robert Henri, John Sloan, Everett Shinn, and William Glackens?Luks stood out for his robust painting style, inspired by the dashing technique of the seventeenth century Dutch master Frans Hals. His distinctive touch?at once bold, spontaneous and highly energetic?reflects this influence and is revealed to perfection in the present work. To be sure, Luks defines the figures with bold, painterly strokes, avoiding extraneous detail in favor of a more improvisatory interpretation that imbues his subjects with vitality and brings an intimate moment to life. The artist conjoins this approach with a reductive palette comprised of browns, ivory, and pale flesh tones, hues very much in keeping with the earthy types he liked to portray.

The Guitar was acquired directly from the artist by Arthur Egner, a New Jersey-based lawyer and a founding member of the Newark Museum who collected paintings by New York Realists such as Luks, John Sloan, and others. That he should be attracted to this engaging canvas is not surprising, for Egner was one of Luks?s most important patrons and a friend; in his foreword to the catalogue of the artist?s memorial exhibition in 1934, he stated that when viewing Luks?s work, ?we realize . . . his humanity and how much his art was a part of himself.?6 Writing about Egner?s collection in 1917, the noted painter-critic Guy Pène du Bois paid special homage to The Guitar, identifying it, appropriately, as ?one of our great pictures.? 7

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©The essay herein is the property of Spanierman Gallery, LLC and is copyrighted by Spanierman Gallery, LLC. It may not be reproduced without written permission from Spanierman Gallery, LLC nor shown or communicated to anyone without due credit being given to Spanierman Gallery, LLC.

1 George Luks, Philadelphia Ledger, October 30, 1933, quoted in Bennard B. Perlman, Painters of the Ashcan School: The Immortal Eight (New York: Dover, 1979), p. 78.
2 Lloyd Goodrich quoted in Catalog of an Exhibition of the Work of George Benjamin Luks, exh. cat. (Newark, N.J.: Newark Museum, 1934), p. 12.
3 For biographical information on William D. Luks, see ?Will Luks,? New Yorker, 15 February 1936, pp. 14-15, and ?William D. Luks,? New York Times, December 17, 1952, p. 33. Luks had three sons?Kraemer, Daniel and George?and two daughters. It is not known which child is depicted in the painting.
4 Anabelle?s mother owned the Greenwich Village boarding house where George Luks lived upon his arrival in New York in 1896, which is how the couple met. A caring uncle to Will and Anabelle?s offspring, he is said to have ?treated their children as his own,? taking them to local restaurants and for long walks through the Village. See Stanley L. Cuba, ?George Luks (1866-1933)? in George Luks: An American Artist, exh. cat. (Wilkes-Barre, Penn.: Sordoni Art Gallery, Wilkes College, 1987), p. 17.
5 Duncan Phillips quoted in Catalog of an Exhibition of the Work of George Benjamin Luks, 22.
6 Arthur F. Egner, ?Foreword,? in Catalog of an Exhibition of the Work of George Benjamin Luks, 11.
7 Guy Pène du Bois, ?The Collection of Mr. Arthur F. Egner,? Arts and Decoration (August 1917): 476.





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