Speaking of magazines (I’m posting this before the post about DRAFT but since most people read blogs from top to bottom you’ll likely see this second) … the new All About Beer (March 2007) has a feature about the art of beer.
The introduction concludes “the real journey in seeking art can’t be hired out. You have to get involved. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.”
In that spirit I offer you the picture above, one of many paintings and etchings of McSorley’s Saloon that artist John Sloan did between 1912 and 1930.
The interaction between art and beer (in this case beer place) created a virtuous circle. Whenever there was a public exhibition of Sloan’s paintings, business boomed in the bar – and more artists came to make more paintings. Joseph Mitchell immortalized the bar in The New Yorker, and his essays were later compiled in the book McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon.
McSorley’s was tagged as America’s most famous bar in the 1940s when Life magazine ran a picture story about a day in the life of the alehouse. It’s never really given up the title.