Untitled sketch from Cuba
William James Glackens American
Not on view
In May 1898 Glackens was hired by “McClure’s Magazine,” traveling with American troops in Florida and Cuba to report on fighting during the Spanish-American War. This drawing was executed during a three-month period in Cuba and reveals his special talent for character study and direct observation, deriving from his early training as a newspaper artist in Philadelphia. While crayon sketches served as lively, yet efficient “aide-mémoires,” Glackens’s more finished pen-and-ink drawings of troops and battles were published in “McClure’s” and “Munsey’s Magazine,” marking the end of his years as an artist-reporter.
