Eight the

An influential and innovative American group of eight artists, members were Arthur Davies; Maurice Prendergast; Ernest Lawson; Robert Henri (the unofficial leader); George Luks; William J. Glackens; John Sloan and Everett Shinn. Later, George Wesley Bellows became an associate. Officially formed in 1907, the artists had been associated since the 1880s in Philadelphia. They shared the common goal of rebelling against the sentimental genre scenes of the popular American painters and the rigid academic tradition imported from Europe. The Eight, not to be confused with the Ash Can School, held only one exhibition as a group, and this event was at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City in 1908. Source: Matthew Baigell, "Dictionary of American Art"