Documenting New York City's cultural coming-of-age, a historical biography of an American painter and propagandist reveals the social and political scene of the early 1900s, including Sloan's activist wife, Dolly Painter John Sloan (1871^-1951), associated with the Ashcan school, is hardly a household name, but his evocative portrayals of early-twentieth-century New York do resonate in our consciousness and his life story is full of drama. Loughery, author of Alias S. S. Van Dine (1992), brings Sloan--an independent, assiduous, talented, and loyal man--to life and, in the process, teaches us as much about love as about art. Sloan got his start as a newspaper artist and became adept at translating his keen insights into the emotional complexity of city life into etchings and paintings as notable for their compassion as for their aesthetics. This open-mindedness was obvious in his private life as well. Eschewing bourgeois values, Sloan fell in love with and married a woman he met in a brothel. The story of their loving if volatile relationship underlies Loughery's engrossing account of their political awakening (both Sloans became active Socialists) and the steady evolution of Sloan's art. Sloan eventually painted landscapes, portraits, and nudes in addition to his better known urban scenes. We applaud Loughery for bringing Sloan, an often neglected artist, to light. Donna Seaman John Loughery is the art critic for The Hudson Review.