With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Eric Sloane
Painting/Drawing, Journalism/Non-Fiction
1910 – 1985
- Biography/Description of Work
Eric Sloane was born Everard Jean Hinrichs in New York City in 1905. During his childhood, one of his next door neighbors was Frederick Goudy, the font inventor. Hinrichs spent much time with him, learning to hand paint letters and create signs. At the age of 14, he had a falling out with his family and ran away from home. He earned a living traveling the country by painting signs on barns, stores, and buildings. He eventually attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and studied meteorology before going to Yale to study art. One of his mentors was the Ashcan painter, John Sloan. Hinrichs changed his surname to Sloane in honor of his mentor, with an added ‘e’ at the end, and his first name to Eric. Some of Eric Sloane’s first clients were pilots who hired him to paint signs on their planes and sometimes took him on flights. Sloane was fascinated by the interplay of clouds sky, and worked these elements in many of his paintings, of which he made some 15,000. His first cloud painting was purchased by Amelia Earhart. His largest cloud painting is a six-story mural at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. In the early 1950s, Sloane moved to the Candlewood Lake area and later settled in Warren from 1956 to 1985. He developed an interest in the Early American Settlers after restoring a farmhouse. He wrote and illustrated over thirty books on American folklore and weather among other topics. In 1969, he donated his extensive early American tool collection to Stanley Works, Inc., to be housed in a museum for the 125th anniversary of their founding; that collection is now at the Sloane Museum in Kent. The contents of the studio at his home in Warren were donated to the Sloane Museum after his death, and are housed in a gable-roof addition to the museum.
- Sources view
- Uconn database, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Sloane, http://www.ericsloane-awareness.com/bio.htm, Eric Sloane Article - New York Times - 1974-3-3, Eric Sloane Article - New York Times - 1985-6-16, Eric Sloane Obituary - New York Times - 1985-3-8; Smith, Marshall, A Short Biography of Eric Sloane, www.ericsloane.com, November 21, 2012, accessed March 7, 2016 http://www.ericsloane.com/; Folkart, Burt A., Eric Sloane, Americana Artist, Dies, Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1985, accessed March 7, 2016 http://articles.latimes.com/1985-03-09/news/mn-23439_1_eric-sloane
- Associated Resource(s)