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Eric Sloane

Author profile

born

February 27, 1905 in New York, N.Y.

died

March 05, 1985

website

http://www.ericsloane.com/

About this author

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Eric Sloane (born Everard Jean Hinrichs) was an American landscape painter and author of illustrated works of cultural history and folklore. He is considered a member of the Hudson River School of painting.

Eric Sloane was born in New York City. As a child, he was a neighbor of noted sign painter and type designer Frederick W. Goudy. Sloane studied art and lettering with Goudy. While he attended the Art Students League of New York City, he changed his name because George Luks and John French Sloan suggested that young students should paint under an assumed name so that early inferior works would not be attached to them. He took the name Eric from the middle letters of America and Sloane from his mentor's name.

In the summer of 1925, Sloane ra...more Eric Sloane (born Everard Jean Hinrichs) was an American landscape painter and author of illustrated works of cultural history and folklore. He is considered a member of the Hudson River School of painting.

Eric Sloane was born in New York City. As a child, he was a neighbor of noted sign painter and type designer Frederick W. Goudy. Sloane studied art and lettering with Goudy. While he attended the Art Students League of New York City, he changed his name because George Luks and John French Sloan suggested that young students should paint under an assumed name so that early inferior works would not be attached to them. He took the name Eric from the middle letters of America and Sloane from his mentor's name.

In the summer of 1925, Sloane ran away from home, working his way across the country as a sign painter, creating advertisements for everything from Red Man Tobacco to Bull Durham. Unique hand calligraphy and lettering became a characteristic of his illustrated books.

Sloane eventually returned to New York and settled in Connecticut, where he began painting rustic landscapes in the tradition of the Hudson River School. In the 1950s, he began spending part of the year in Taos, New Mexico, where he painted western landscapes and particularly luminous depictions of the desert sky. In his career as a painter, he produced over 15,000 works. His fascination with the sky and weather led to commissions to paint works for the U.S. Air Force and the production of a number of illustrated works on meteorology and weather forecasting. Sloane is even credited with creating the first televised weather reporting network, by arranging for local farmers to call in reports to a New England broadcasting station.

Sloane also had a great interest in New England folk culture, Colonial daily life, and Americana. He wrote and illustrated scores of Colonial era books on tools, architecture, farming techniques, folklore, and rural wisdom. Every book included detailed illustrations, hand lettered titles, and his characteristic folksy wit and observations. He developed an impressive collection of historic tools which became the nucleus of the collection in the Sloane-Stanley Tool Museum in Kent, Connecticut.

Sloane died in New York in 1985, while walking down the street to a luncheon held in his honor.

Sloane's best known books are A Reverence for Wood, which examines the history and tools of woodworking, as well as the philosophy of the woodworker; The Cracker Barrel, which is a compendium of folk wit and wisdom; and Diary of an Early American Boy: Noah Blake-1805, based on a diary he discovered at a local library book sale. His most famous painted work is probably the skyscape mural, Earth Flight Environment, which is still on display in the Independence Avenue Lobby in the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum.(less)

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Books by Eric Sloane

Average rating: 4.18 · 499 ratings · 64 reviews · 36 distinct works

	Diary of an Early American Boy 4.21 avg rating — 122 ratings — published 1958 — 9 editions	My rating:
	A Reverence for Wood 4.37 avg rating — 83 ratings — published 1965 — 9 editions	My rating:
	A Museum of Early American Tools 4.25 avg rating — 44 ratings — 10 editions	My rating:
	Our Vanishing Landscape 4.37 avg rating — 30 ratings — 5 editions	My rating:
	Eric Sloan's An Age of Barns 4.29 avg rating — 31 ratings — 5 editions	My rating:
	Eric Sloane's Sketches of America Past 4.33 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 1986 — 2 editions	My rating:
	The Seasons of America Past 4.05 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 1965 — 2 editions	My rating:
	American Barns and Covered Bridges 4.29 avg rating — 17 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:
	American Yesterday 4.06 avg rating — 16 ratings — published 2003	My rating:
	Eric Sloane's Weather Almanac 4.17 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 2005	My rating:

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Quotes by Eric Sloane

“The places and people in the following stories have been represented accurately to the best of my ability; yet my writing is supposed to be a tale, and as in any historical novel, my own imagination has blended with fact to create poetical reality. ”
― Eric Sloane

tags: history

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