This Day in Armory Show History: on February 19, 1913, a mere two days after the official opening of the exhibit, this cartoon by John Sloan was published in the journal “The Masses.” Though Sloan was a painter who also exhibited at the show, and a member of the organization that sponsored it, he seems to have had the same reaction to Cubism that much of the press did: that it would make you crazy. He captions his cartoon “a slight attack of third dementia brought on by excessive study of the much-talked of cubist pictures in the international exhibition at New York.”

John Sloan cartoon from New Masses, found in Walt Kuhn scrapbook of press clippings documenting the Armory Show, vol. 2, 1913. Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

For more on the Armory Show, visit our dedicated site: armoryshow.si.edu