view, Whistler was not a realist because he never descended to the obvious or commonplace. When his father died in 1902, Gallatin became head of a family consisting of himself, two sisters, and their mother. As a member of New York's social elite he gave and attended high-profile dinners, dances, weddings, and benefits. His name appeared frequently in the press as a result these activities and also as a result of his pioneering affection for automobiles and motor sport. His inheritance made it unnecessary for him to work for a living and he chose not to follow the lead of other members of his class by engaging in banking, stock brokerage, or other professional occupation. Instead, he continued to collect art and to enhance his reputation as an art connoisseur by his writings. During the years leading up to the First World War he became increasingly interested in American artists such as illustrator Otho Cushing, pleinair painter Frederick Frieseke, and painter of interiors Walter Gay. He also acquired and wrote about artists associated with the Ashcan School—Everett Shinn, William Glackens, Ernest Lawson, and John Sloan as well as other young American artists, including John Marin and Boardman Robinson. While the drawings, paintings, and prints of these artists appear to have little in common with the work of Beardsley and Whistler, he saw in them a similar feeling for form, elegance of line, and "entire freedom from all taint of the academic." Glackens, he wrote, was like Whistler in his originality, his great color sense, and his ability to bring subjects to life. Shinn's paintings revealed to him a "personal expression of the artist's genius" and he also saw in them a "decorative instinct" that he admired in virtually all the art he collected. He was pessimistic about the capacity of museums and government agencies to support young American artists and believed they would be best served by individual art lovers, collectors, and "enlightened" critics. Gallatin served in World War I as a member of a naval reserve unit and directed two civilian groups: a federal government committee on exhibitions of art propaganda and a municipal committee that encouraged artists to make posters supporting the war effort. This involvement led to a book, Art and the Great War, (1919) in which Gallatin discussed war-related art in the allied nations, giving many examples of paintings, drawings, posters, caricatures, and prints that he