The Eight — A group of American painters who united to oppose various traditions upheld by the National Academy. They exhibited together only once — in 1908, but the effect of their gesture was to strengthen the advance of modernism in the United States. The Eight included five painters associated with the Ashcan school: Robert Henri (1865-1929), George Luks (1867-1933), William Glackens (1870-1938), John Sloan (1871-1951), and Everett Shinn (1876-1953), along with Maurice Prendergast (1859-1924), Ernst Lawson (1873-1939), and Arthur Bowen Davies (1862-1928).