McSorley’s Bar by John Sloan 1912

 

This painting of McSorley’s Bar by John Sloan shows the interior of McSorley’s Bar with its clientele standing at the bar.  John McSorley opened his Manhattan establishment on East Seventh Street in 1854 and during its existence in the nineteenth century, was an all-male bar.  From around 1912 it became a regular haunt of John Sloan and his Ashcan School artists.  The bar Sloan depicted was somewhat rough and inhospitable. It was always frequented by a great mix of people of various social classes and even today carpenters and mechanics rub shoulders with Wall Street brokers and local politicians.  John Sloan completed five paintings of the interior of the bar between 1912 and 1930 and these certainly increased the popularity of the establishment.   Today, McSorley’s bar draws visitors from around the world.    Its fame as New York’s oldest bar assures its survival and a 1970 court order guarantees that women are as welcome as men!   It’s a museum-like place. One can go there to drink a pint of ale and survey relics of a past era.

 

 

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