The Ashcan School was a realist artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States in the early 20th century, best known for works capturing scenes of daily life in poor urban neighborhoods.

Ashcan School Artists
The movement is most associated with a group known as "The Eight". The original eight-Robert Henri, Everett Shinn (1876–1953), John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies (1862–1928), Ernest Lawson (1873–1939), Maurice Prendergast, George Luks (1867–1933), and William Glackens-were later joined by George Wesley Bellows.

Exploring Art Style
The Eight exhibited as a group for the first and only time at the Macbeth Gallery in 1908, but they are still remembered as a group, despite the fact that their work was very diverse in terms of style and subject matter.

The Ashcan School was not an organized group, but rather the term was applied later to a group of artists, including Henri, Glackens, Edward Hopper, (a Henri student), Shinn, Sloan, Luks, George Bellows (a Henri student), Mabel Dwight, and others, who painted urban subject matter, primarily New York's poorer neighborhoods.

It was this frequent, though not total, focus on poverty that prompted critics to consider them the fringe of 'modern' art.

 In 1908 they exhibited together in New York City. Saloons, tenements, pool halls, and slums were among their favourite subjects, and their style was rough and realistic. Their careers took various directions, and a few years later they were absorbed into the Ash Can school.

Art Works By Ashcan School Artists

• Everett Shinn (American, 1876-1953), Fire on Twenty-Fourth Street, 1907, pastel on paper, Cheekwood Art Museum, Nashville.
• Everett Shinn, Dancer in White Before the Footlights, 1910, oil on canvas, 35 x 39 inches, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH.
• George Benjamin Luks (American, 1866-1933), In the Steerage, 1900, oil on canvas, 30 5/8 x 19 1/4 inches (77.8 x 48.9 cm), North Carolina Art Museum, Raleigh.
• George Wesley Bellows (American, 1882-1925), Stag at Sharkey's, 1909, oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 48 1/4 inches (92 x 122.6 cm), Cleveland Museum of Art. See diagonal.
• George Wesley Bellows (American, 1882-1925), Steaming Streets, 1908, oil on canvas, 38 3/8 x 30 1/4 inches (97.5 x 76.8 cm), Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA. See painterly.
• George Wesley Bellows, Cliff Dwellers, 1913, oil on canvas, 40 1/8 x 42 inches (101.9 x 106.7 cm), Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
• George Wesley Bellows, Mrs. T in Cream Silk, No.2, 1920, oil on canvas, 53 x 43 inches, Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
• George Wesley Bellows, The White Horse, 1922, oil on canvas, Worcester Art Museum, MA.
• John Sloan (American, 1871-1951), Night Windows, 1910, etching, 5 1/4 x 7 inches. This was exhibited in the influential Armory Show of 1913.
• John Sloan, 1912, "Tee Hee" Boys: Born with a Vote and a Partial Sense of the Ridiculous, 1912, ink and crayon, published in Collier's, May 18, 1912, as "Aw, Susie, be them dishes washed?" Library of Congress, Washington, DC. This crowd watches and jeers as a parade of suffragettes parade past. Suffragettes were women who campaigned for the right to vote.
• John Sloan, Nude, Pink Striped Coverlet, 1927, 13 1/2 X 15 inches, oil on canvas, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH.
• John Sloan, Sunday, Women Drying Their Hair, 1912, oil on canvas, 25 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA. This too was exhibited in the influential Armory Show of 1913.
• Robert Henri (born Robert Henry Cozad) (American, 1865-1929), The Laundress, c. 1910, oil on canvas, Phoenix Art Museum, AZ.
• William Glackens (American, 1870-1938), Family Group, 1910 or 1911, oil on canvas, 72 x 84 inches, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. This was exhibited in the influential Armory Show of 1913.