John Sloan, Breezy Day, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1915

 Rae Sloan Bredin, Reverie, 1915 Private collection #rae

John French Sloan, Sally and Paul, Reds and Greens, 1914

John French Sloan, Cottage at Gloucester, ca. 1914-1918

Wintermann Collection of American Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. David R. Wintermann

 John French Sloan, Cottage at Gloucester, ca. 1914-1918 Oil

 Rae Sloan Bredin, The Garden Bench, 1920 Private collection

Bequest of Glenn L. and Jayne Seydell Milburn

 John Sloan, Bench on the Palisades, 1908 Oil on Canvas, 

 John Sloan, Red Kimono on the Roof, 1912 Oil on Canvas

John Sloan (1871-1951): Three A.M., 1909, Oil on canvas, 81.6 x 66.7 cm (32 1/8 x 26 1/4 inches), Philadelphia Museum of Art

Born in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, Sloan worked as a Philadelphia newspaper illustrator and trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He moved to New York in 1904, where the views from his Chelsea apartment provided intimate new subjects of urban life.

Sloan based this painting on a late-night view from his Chelsea studio into the window of his neighbors. The palette of warm browns and greens envelops his subjects in a private domestic setting. The woman at the stove stands absorbed in the quiet activity of preparing a small meal, smoking as she listens to the animated chatter of her friend. The proximity of the seated figure to the open door and her extravagantly plumed hat identify her with the bustle of the outside world and provide a contrast to the domestic intimacy represented by the woman cooking in a nightgown and bare feet. In an era of wasp-waisted Gibson girls, Sloan's full-figured woman evokes the robustness of the working class and a more earthy sexuality. The title of the painting reflects an entry in Sloan's journal for April 28, 1909: "A good day's work, painting on the subject that has been stewing in my mind for some weeks. I have been watching a curious two room household, two women and, I think, two men, their day begins after midnight, they cook at 3 A.M."