Sloan’s picnics are happy, and he uses the picnic theme intermittently, beginning with The Picnic Grounds, especially with South Beach Bathers (1909), The Picnic on the Ridge (1920), and Picnic, Arroyo Hondo (1938).
The Picnic Grounds is a summer scene where young girls in summer dresses play under a grove of trees with whitewashed bark. A picnic table and a bandstand decorated with bunting are in the background, indicating some type of community event.
Sloan had visited the picnic grounds at Bayonne, New Jersey, and getting back to his studio, began painting the experience from memory. He entered the finished painting in the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts Fellowship Exhibition, priced at $250. But it didn’t sell. It never did sell.
Featured Image: John Sloan. The Picnic Grounds (1906-1907). Oil on canvas. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York