Style Imitating Art…
Welcome back to my interpretation of a piece of art created by a very unique artist. Salazar, Shelbee, and I are the curators. You can think of this series as fashion meets art museum! SIA challenges people to find inspiration in different art works, create looks based upon that art work, and share them with the curator for that piece. I am this week’s curator with this new to me art movement. I hope you enjoy this post, the information, and my interpretation.
How it works…
Every other Monday one of us selects an inspiration piece of art and posts the image on their blog. We then invite others to interpret that art work through their style. The following Monday, we share our outfits. The curator shares submissions the following Wednesday on her blog. I chose this week’s art work for this round of Style Imitating Art. If you’d like, you can read why I chose it here. Please send your photo to me by Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 by 10 pm EST. Style Imitating Art is an interesting way to inspire your outfits. You can see a few of my looks here, here, here, and here.
The artist…
One of America’s greatest twentieth century artists was found dead in the doorway of a speakeasy near the Sixth Avenue elevated railway in Manhattan. Some reports said he’d been kicked and beaten almost to death. Others said he was probably sleeping off another night of heavy drinking. Whichever is true, George Luks died on October 29, 1933. And, with his death, the life of one of the most interesting artists I’ve come across ended. Luks was many things…an alcoholic, a bit of a braggart, a showman…he took great pride in being the “Bad Boy” of the art world at the time. George Luks, however, was a natural artist with next to no formal training in art.
A little more..
Luks was born in Williamsport, PA on August 13, 1867 (though some sources said 1866). His father was a multilingual doctor who had emigrated from Poland. His mother, an amateur painter herself, was the daughter of a noble family in Germany. When Luks was young, the family relocated to the coal-mining town of Shenandoah, PA. It was in these coal mining communities that Luks learned about poverty as well as compassion as he saw his parents helping coal miners’ families. For a while in 1884, Luks studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Interestingly, he and his brother, Will, toured Pennsylvania and New Jersey as vaudeville performers under the names, “Buzzey & Anstock!” George Luks knew, at an early age, he wanted to paint so he soon left vaudeville behind.
Still more…
After leaving the Pennsylvania Academy, Luks traveled back and forth to Europe (the first trip in 1889), visiting the various museums, taking classes at the Düsseldorf School of Art in Germany, and studying Dutch artist, Frans Hals. Here is where we see Luks’ ego come into play. He often said there were only two great artists in the world – Frans Hals and “little old George Luks.” Luks partied almost as hard as he studied while in Europe. He traveled to Germany, Paris, and London as well as Spain. There, he studied the works of Diego Velazquez and Francisco de Goya. Interestingly, for a rather boastful dude, Luks never drew attention to his “privileged upbringing or to his European travels as a young man. Instead, Luks became known as a boastful, quarrelsome alcoholic who gave distorted accounts of his past—emphasizing youthful exploits and the bucking of tradition, even inventing an alter ego, the boxer “Chicago Whitey.” One critic said, “As for the personality of the man… He is Puck. He is Caliban. He is Falstaff. He is a tornado. He is sentimental. He can sigh like a lover, and curse like a trooper.”
The Yellow Kid…
Upon his return to the states in 1893, Luks began his career as an illustrator, first for the Philadelphia Press as well as the Philadelphia Bulletin. He traveled to Havana as an artist/correspondent and covered the Cuban fight for independence from Spain in 1895. Many say his correspondence came from a bar stool, far from any warfare. Upon his return, Luks began work at the New York World where he drew the cartoon Hogan’s Alley which featured the Yellow Kid. The Yellow Kid had originally been drawn by Richard Outcault, but he was doing more cartoons than illustrations by this time. The Yellow Kid, as drawn by Outcault, increased the newspaper’s sales so much that William Randolph Hearst, who had purchased the Journal, persuaded Outcault to leave the Pulitzer publication. His last Yellow Kid cartoon, “The Amateur Dime Museum in Hogan’s Alley,” appeared on October 4, 1896. Two weeks later, he was drawing the Yellow Kid for Hearst. Pulitzer told Luks to continue drawing the Yellow Kid in Hogan’s Alley and his first cartoon, “Training for the Football Championship Game in Hogan’s Alley,” was published on October 11, 1896, just a week after Outcault’s departure. Luks would go on to draw nearly 50 Yellow Kid pages and signed them “Geo B. Luks.” The series ended on December 5, 1897. Outcault would continue producing Yellow Kid pages until February 6, 1898, just two months later though he would draw the Yellow Kid occasionally for a few more months.
The Philadelphia Five…
During this time, Luks had joined a group of young artists who gathered around Robert Henri. Many were fellow newspaper illustrators like William Glackens, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan. They became known as the Philadelphia Five. Glackens encouraged Luks to give up illustrating in newspapers and focus on his painting. Luks had barely any formal training, yet his ability as an artist was always “highly regarded from the beginning.” In 1898, Luks left the newspaper and focused on his painting. He returned to Paris and England to study and party in 1902-03. At that time, he left his first wife behind. She gave birth to his only child, Kent, while he was away. He divorced Lois a year later. He married Emma Noble in 1904 and divorced her in 1925. He then married Mercedes Carbonell in 1927 and remained married to her until his death. I wonder, though, if any of his wives knew of his partying. One has to wonder about his fidelity on those trips to Europe, right?
The Eight…
Once he returned to New York, Luks participated in an exhibition at the Natural Arts Club. Although he wasn’t drawing the Yellow Kid any longer, his focus was still the same: the everyday person. The addition of Arthur Davies, Maurice Pendergast, and Ernest Lawson brought the total to eight artists. It was at this time the Philadelphia Five became known as The Eight. Their work was nicknamed the “ashcan” school because they painted urban scenes realistically while poking fun at the upper classes, thus paying homage to the common man. The palettes were dark and the subject matter gritty. This everyday realism was not popular with the National Academy of Art as their art challenged its dominance and jury system.
Recognition…
By this time, Luks was beginning to gain recognition, and he began exhibiting with the Society of American Artists. In 1908, The Eight had a show at the Macbeth Gallery. Luks’ paintings concentrated on Manhattan’s Lower East side with portraits of children, beggars, and unusual individuals. His paintings expressed concern for the plights of these figures. Two years later, Luks had his first solo exhibition at Macbeth. As a member of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, he was included in the Armory Show of 1913. In 1914, he submitted illustrations to Vanity Fair. This publishing relationship would last for the remainder of his life. One of his best known works is the 1905 painting, The Spielers, of two little girls dancing. When he diverged from his Ashcan tendencies, he created some of his best work. Chief among those is The Swan Boats, a beautiful pointillist painting recently for sale for more than $1 million.
Finally…
As Luks exhibited more and more widely, his work garnered awards, including the gold medal at the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s biennial exhibition in 1932. He also won the Temple Gold Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, one of several he would be awarded during his career. Luks also taught at the Art Students League between 1920 and 1924. While there, he would take his students to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While there, he would critique other artists and paintings. One of his “favorites” was a portrait by John Singer Sargent. He would stand in front of it and give it a “raspberry.” The guards were glad to see him leave as many people who weren’t his students would soon be following along. He was dismissed by the League for drunkenness in 1924. He then opened his own school, the George Luks School of Painting. A promotional brochure proclaimed it “a virile school of Living American Art. …It is George Luks’ policy to develop the individuality of the student and to give him a sound knowledge of the craft of painting, building up each student with sympathetic and wise counsel so that they see and think for themselves.” “He was not interested in preaching the tenets of modernism; his commitment was to realism and direct observation.” Luks would paint beside his students until he died in 1933. His funeral was packed with family, former students, and past and present friends. He was buried in an 18th century embroidered waistcoat, one of his most valued possessions. He is buried at Fernwood Cemetery in Royersford, Pennsylvania.
The Ashcan School…
The Ashcan School was not like any other “school.” This wasn’t an organized movement so much as a group of artists who wanted to paint in a way not generally accepted by the art world and the public. They wanted to tell “certain truths about the city and modern life they felt had been ignored by the suffocating influence of the Genteel Tradition in the visual arts. Robert Henri, considered the father of the Ashcan School, “wanted art to be as real as mud, as the clods of horse sh*t and snow, that froze on Broadway in the winter.” Henri encouraged the others to paint in the “robust, unfettered, ungenteel spirit of his favorite poet, Walt Whitman, and to be unafraid of offending contemporary taste. He urged them to “paint the everyday world in America just as it had been done in France.” By 1904, all of the artists had move to New York City.
A little more…
Also known as “The Apostles of Ugliness,” the Ashcan School wasn’t known for its innovations in technique. It was known for painting prostitutes and street urchins. Many of the Ashcan School painters had been illustrators in newspapers before the arrival of photography. Luks once said, “I can paint with a shoestring dipped in pitch and lard.” When Henri returned from Paris in the mid-1890s, he was determined to create art that engaged with everyday life and wanted this passion to spread to the other artists. Due to the dark palette used by the artists, the group was also called “the revolutionary black gang.” Interestingly, fiction was also becoming more realistic in nature with the works of Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, and Frank Norris.
The end…
American Impressionism and academic realism were both discarded by the Ashcan School. Paintings were both darker in tone and painted more roughly. The artists wanted to capture the harsher moments of modern life…street kids, prostitutes, alcoholics, “indecorous” animals (pigs, geese, etc), crowded tenements, and washing hung out to dry. Other subjects were bloodied boxers and wrestlers on the mat. This focusing on poverty and the gritty realities of city life provoked some critics and curators to consider the art too upsetting for most people and collections. Modernism put an end to the Ashcan School’s provocative reputation. The Cubists, Fauves, and Expressionists made the Ashcan School look quite bland. In fact, the revolt was over not long after it began. By 1920, the works of the Ashcan School were considered old-fashioned.
The artwork…
Allen Street is currently on view at the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, TN. The painting is oil on canvas and measures 32 × 45 inches (81.3 × 114.3 cm) without the frame. Framed, it measures 2 1/4 × 55 1/4 × 3 1/4 inches (107.3 × 140.3 × 8.3 cm). According to AI (which I really don’t like, but sometimes I get more information), It is “a bustling, realistic street scene of Allen Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, capturing the energy of immigrant life in early 20th-century New York. The painting is celebrated for its “New Realism” style, focusing on the gritty, unidealized daily life of the urban poor rather than the genteel subjects favored by traditional academies of the time.” It was a gift of Miss Inez Hyder in 1956.
Something interesting…
Here is a video of a woman whose great-grandfather was a friend of George Luks! Her grandmother had held onto this watercolor, and it had been passed down through the family until she got it. The video is from 2009, and the value of the painting dropped $30,000! In 2025, it was still worth $45,000! Can you imagine?
Sources…
My interpretation…
As usual, I struggled with my interpretation. This time, it was because I had a plethora of ideas for the outfit. I couldn’t decide which colors were more important in the painting. Finally, I decided on this look. Again, I relied on Kantha Bae to deliver. I layered this Crepe Sari Dahlia Duster Dress over a Pixie Skirt. I thought the bright colors took precedence over the darker ones so I layered bright over dark! I also added a black lace Halftee because I was cold! The black appears to be sold out, but they often restock. Remember, the links I’m sharing aren’t to my specific Kantha Bae pieces. Each piece is unique as they are created from saris no longer being worn.
The Lewk!
I know, I know! It’s another appearance of the the boots! I’m wearing my black Miz Mooz Leighton boots. I figured women of Luks’ time would have worn boots similar to these. I added two bracelets my youngest and his partner gave me when they returned from Ghana. I have no idea where I got the plain brown wooden one. The earrings are from J Jill.
Wrap it up, Marsha!
I found George Luks so fascinating. Here is this fellow with no real artistic training, but everyone recognizes his talent. He moves from place to place, illustrating magazines and newspapers as well as covering a revolution. Then, he makes the decision to begin painting full-time. But, in doing so, he joins a relatively unknown “school” of painting. He joins because the themes and subjects were exactly his métier. At the same time, he’s also quite proud of being the “Bad Boy” of art and ends up dead, probably because of that. Surely, this is Netflix movie material, right? So, can we talk? Is George Luks a sympathetic character (I know he was a real person) to you? Are you drawn to the Ashcan School aesthetic? How do you think Luks died? Please leave me a comment or two, and we can talk. I promise to respond as quickly as I can.
Don’t forget…
If you want to be included in the Style Imitating Art round up, send me your photo by 10:00 pm EST, Tuesday, April 7th. Photos of everyone participating will appear on my blog on Wednesday, April 8th! If you’re interested in joining us, consider all of your options…the colors, the textures, the feelings they evoke! Come on, give it a try! I think you’ll love it!
Thank you!
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Where you can find me:
Linking up with Nancy’s Fashion Style, Fine-Whatever, Is This Mutton, Shelbee on the Edge, Chez Mireile, Suzy Turner, and Away from the Blue as well as Deb’s World . I also link up with I do deClaire, Mummabstylish, Style Splash and Elegantly Dressed and Stylish as well as the Senior Salon Pit Stop (Esme’s Salon) and Slices of Life. Please check out these wonderful ladies and their blogs! I also am a co-host for Ageless Style on the third Thursday of the month and Songful Style on the last Monday of the month as well as the Global Writing Challenge on the second Thursday. I co-host Traffic Jam Weekend every Thursday with Melynda, Lisa, Cat, and Rena. I also host 10 on the 10th on the 10th of the month! I do hope you’ll check out all of these blogs and link parties!
Thank you Marsha, an interesting insight into this artist.