Monet and American Impressionism Object Labels

Monet and American Impressionism
Object Labels
The Allure of Giverny
Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Champ d’avoine (Oat Field)
1890
Oil on canvas
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gift of Michael A. Singer
1999.6
Through his vibrant landscapes, Claude Monet expressed the immediacy of
experience by underscoring the fleeting nature of visual phenomena.
During the 1860s and 1870s, he developed his technique for rendering
atmospheric lighting effects consisting of broken, rhythmic brushwork, thus
laying the foundations of the Impressionist movement. Champ d’avoine
belongs to a series of plein-air landscapes depicting the fields of oats and
poppies in the vicinity of his home in Giverny. Painted in late summer, when
the fields were at their peak, this series explores the effects of light on
one’s perception of color and form. Champ d’avoine illustrates Monet’s
technique of applying paint with small touches of the brush, building up the
surface to create a shimmering texture. The composition exemplifies
Monet’s taste for bold, asymmetrical design and his use of space created
through carefully measured intervals. The painting is arranged along strong
horizontal bands created by the field of poppies in the foreground, the hills
of Giverny in the distance and the open sky in the upper half.
Theodore Robinson
American, 1852-1896
Afternoon Shadows
1891
Oil on canvas
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Museum purchase, funds
provided by Michael A. and Donna Singer
2007.7
Theodore Robinson was familiar with Monet’s taste for asymmetrically
balanced compositions and his use of space created through carefully
measured intervals—techniques that are present in Monet’s Champ
d’avoine (on view to the left). Robinson used these devices in Afternoon
Shadows, painted in Giverny in 1891. This landscape portrays a single stack
of grain in a meadow of vivid greens and yellows bordered by a stand of
trees. The deep shadows in the foreground recede toward the sunlit
boundary of the field, suggesting midday. He painted another version
featuring gray tonalities, suggesting late afternoon. Inspired by Monet’s
grainstack series of 1890-91, Robinson borrowed both the theme and the
idea of working in series from Monet.
Willard Leroy Metcalf
American, 1858-1925
Giverny
1887
Oil on canvas
Collection of The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky; Bequest of Addison
M. Metcalf
1984.19.10
The son of mill workers, Willard Metcalf grew up in the Boston area. He
resided in France between 1883 and 1888, studying at the Académie Julian
and travelling through Brittany and Normandy. Metcalf is known to have
visited Giverny in 1886 (possibly as early as 1885) and to have spent
extended periods in the village until 1888. His Giverny landscape possesses
vibrant sunlight and shadows, a bright palette, and a loose handling of
paint. It also shows his commitment to representing the essence of a place
as opposed to its details. This painting depicts the tree-lined river Epte,
which runs through the village of Giverny. Beyond the trees, in the upper
left, is a glimpse of Giverny’s typical red-roofed houses.
Lilla Cabot Perry
American, 1848-1933
Landscape in Normandy
1890
Oil on canvas
Collection of the Newark Museum, Bequest of Diana Bonnor Lewis
1988.88.9
Born into an old New England family, Lilla Cabot Perry grew up in the world
of Boston’s social elite. She began her formal training in 1885 at Boston’s
Cowles Art School. In 1887, she accompanied her husband, Thomas
Sergeant Perry, on a two-year European tour and enrolled at the Julian and
Colarossi art academies in Paris. Two of her paintings were exhibited in
1889 in the Salon, a prestigious juried exhibition in Paris. She first visited
Giverny that summer and returned eight times by 1909. Landscape in
Normandy shows a cluster of farm buildings at the upper border of the
field. A ridge of dark foliage at left defines a gentle diagonal that is
mirrored by the soft pastels of the field to the right. Here, Perry presents
Giverny as a peaceful, unspoiled hamlet in contrast to the bustling village it
would become in the 1900s with the increasing presence of tourists and
painters.
Lilla Cabot Perry
American, 1848-1933
A Stream Beneath Poplars
c. 1890-1900
Oil on canvas
Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Gift of Mr. and Mrs.
Stuart P. Feld
1973.21
During a series of extended visits to Giverny between 1889 and 1909, Lilla
Cabot Perry developed a long-lasting friendship with Monet. Under his
influence, she painted outdoors and adopted a brighter palette and looser
brushwork. During long periods back in Boston, Perry encouraged collectors
to purchase Monet’s paintings and was instrumental in introducing
Impressionism to American audiences. Her Boston home became a
gathering place where visitors from Giverny mingled with local artistic and
literary figures. A Stream Beneath Poplars recalls Monet’s rural landscapes
of fields lined with poplars painted in the 1880s. The painting’s varied
surface texture and distinct strokes of bright color emulate Monet’s
techniques for capturing the effects of natural light and atmosphere.
Theodore Earl Butler
American, 1861-1936
Un Jardin, Maison Baptiste (A Garden, Maison Baptiste)
1895
Oil on canvas
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of
Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz, 1976
1976.340.1
Born in Columbus, Ohio, Theodore Butler studied at the Art Students
League in New York and the Julian and Colarossi academies in Paris. He first
visited Giverny in 1888 and eventually established a close relationship with
Monet. In 1892, he married one of Monet’s stepdaughters, Suzanne
Hoschedé (1864-1899). Un Jardin, Maison Baptiste depicts the Butler family
cottage in Giverny and its surrounding luxurious garden in a blanket of soft
pastels. A sense of immediacy in the textured brushwork attests to Butler’s
continued interest in working en plein air. The strong diagonal of the
composition suggests familiarity with Monet’s practice of using the
inherent geometry he saw in nature as an organizing principle for his
landscapes.
Robert Vonnoh
American, 1858-1933
Winter Sun and Shadow
1890
Oil on canvas
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, Purchased with funds from the State of
North Carolina
72.1.5
Robert Vonnoh’s Winter Sun and Shadow portrays a winter landscape in
the French countryside and is reminiscent of Monet’s grainstack series of
1890-91. Vonnoh completed this work while living near the Fontainebleau
Forest—a nature preserve thirty-five miles southeast of Paris. The brilliance
of this painting lies in Vonnoh’s representation of vivid sunlight reflected
against the icy winter landscape. Painted en plein air, it captures a fleeting
moment. Vonnoh skillfully suggests the effects of light through distinct
strokes of luminous color and depicts shadows with a palette of blues and
purples. Vonnoh returned to the United States in 1891 and exhibited his
landscapes with much success. He also became an influential and popular
teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
Theodore Robinson
American, 1852-1896
House with Scaffolding, Giverny
1892
Oil on canvas
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh,
Gift of Mrs. Jacques Busbee
G.52.7.1
House with Scaffolding demonstrates Theodore Robinson’s ability to
capture moonlight and shadow on a building and its surroundings. Here,
Robinson used short, quick brushstrokes and a subdued chromatic range to
convey evening shadows on the stuccoed walls of rustic village buildings.
On September 16, 1892, Robinson noted in his diary that Monet had
praised the painting, which was still in progress. Robinson painted House
with Scaffolding during his final stay in Giverny. He struggled with severe,
chronic asthma that prevented him from returning the following year.
Robinson died at age forty-four in New York City as a result of an acute
asthma attack.
Theodore Robinson
American, 1852-1896
Père Trognon and His Daughter at the Bridge
1891
Oil on canvas
Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
1988.29
Père Trognon and His Daughter at the Bridge highlights Theodore
Robinson’s interest in depicting Giverny’s inhabitants in specific village
settings. The painting shows Josephine, one of Robinson’s favorite models,
and her father, Trognon, who is watering his horse at the edge of a river.
The picture’s cropped forms, high horizon line and sketchy, rapid brushwork
reinforce the suggestion of a fleeting, momentary scene taken from
everyday experience.
Robert Vonnoh
American, 1858-1933
Jardin de paysanne (Peasant Garden)
1890
Oil on canvas board
Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
1987.8
The Boston-based painter Robert Vonnoh was an early adherent of
Impressionism. Like many aspiring American artists, he pursued studies at
the Académie Julian in Paris in 1881. He returned to France in 1887 and
settled in the artists’ colony at Grèz-sur-Loing. Other American artists who
painted in this rural French village outside Paris included Willard Metcalf
and Theodore Robinson, who later became more strongly associated with
the artists’ colony at Giverny. Painted in Grèz, Jardin de paysanne (Peasant
Garden) is an informal scene of a mother and child set within a springtime
garden. The painting’s spontaneous brushwork, the asymmetry of the
composition, and the informality of the setting are trademarks of
Impressionism. Yet the figures’ careful three-dimensional modeling and the
emphasis on creating a sense of spatial recession suggest methodical work
in the studio and point to Vonnoh’s earlier training in traditional French art
academies.
Theodore Robinson
American, 1852-1896
Gathering Plums
1891
Oil on canvas
Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Eva Underhill Holbrook Memorial
Collection of American Art; Gift of Alfred H. Holbrook, vintage frame from the
period of the painting; Gift of the Board of Advisors, 1990
1945.76
Originally from Wisconsin, Theodore Robinson began his artistic training in
the 1870s at Chicago’s Academy of Design and New York’s National
Academy of Design. Travel to Paris between 1875 and 1880 brought
opportunities for study at the École des Beaux-Arts. Robinson returned to
France in 1884 and may have visited Giverny as early as 1885. Between
1887 and 1892, he spent half of each year in the village. During this period,
Monet became his personal friend and artistic mentor. Gathering Plums is
based on one of Robinson’s photographs, which he used as a preliminary
study for the composition. Painted loosely, this picture captures the effects
of sunlight and shadow on a variety of surfaces, including foliage, wood
and textiles. The rustic imagery of village life is also found in paintings
executed by artists in other colonies in the French countryside, such as
Barbizon and Grèz-sur-Loing.
Frederick Carl Frieseke
American, 1874-1939
Lilies
by 1911
Oil on canvas
Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
1999.55
Frederick Frieseke’s Lilies was included in a one-artist exhibition that
opened in January 1912 at Macbeth Gallery in New York City. The green
wicker furniture and green-shuttered house identify the setting as the
garden of Le Hameau in Giverny. Beginning in 1906, Frieseke rented this
house, which was adjacent to that of Monet. The focus of the painting is a
social gathering of two women in the outdoors. The artist’s wife, Sadie, an
avid gardener, appears with her back to the viewer as she pours tea from a
blue pot while her companion approaches the table. The lively surface of
the painting is dominated by a mosaic of greens and white. The lilies that
dominate the background represent a traditional emblem of female purity
and mirror the artist’s presentation of this private garden as the setting for
tea time—a traditionally female ritual.
Frederick Carl Frieseke
American, 1874-1939
The Garden Umbrella
by 1910
Oil on canvas
Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, Bequest of Elizabeth Millar (Mrs.
Bernice Frost) Bullard
1942.7
Born in Owosso, Michigan, Frederick Carl Frieseke studied painting in
Chicago, New York, and Paris. An expatriate living in France for much of his
career, he first visited Giverny in the summer of 1900 and would spend
each summer there from 1906 until 1919. Painted in Giverny, The Garden
Umbrella reveals affinities with Monet’s garden views, which were often
the site of informal domestic activity. Sunlight casts a dappled play of light
and shadows in blues, purples and greens on the path and lawn, and the
entire surface is covered in textured color. The dashes of pigment create an
overall flickering effect that mimics the shimmering of the plants and
flowers in brilliant sunlight. The leisurely subject, bright palette and loose
brushwork reflect an Impressionist aesthetic.
A Country Retreat
Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Marée montante à Pourville (Rising Tide at Pourville)
1882
Oil on canvas
Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Horace O. Havemeyer
41.1260
Monet was captivated by the dramatic coastline and picturesque villages of
the French region of Normandy. In February 1882, he settled in the fishing
village at Pourville, where he remained until mid-April. He was attracted to
the cliff-top stone cottages once occupied by the customs officers who
kept watch over the English Channel coast. Monet depicted these rustic
buildings from different viewpoints in a number of paintings during this
period. Rising Tide at Pourville was painted from an elevated viewpoint
above the water and rocky beach. The high horizon line encourages the
viewer to explore the textured surface of the white-capped sea and the
untamed vegetation of the cliff.
Ernest Lawson
American, born in Canada, 1873-1939
Spring Thaw
c. 1910
Oil on canvas
Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
1999.85
Ernest Lawson was born in Nova Scotia, where his father practiced as a
doctor in Halifax. Lawson’s knowledge of the basic features of
Impressionism was gained through studies under John Henry Twachtman
at the Art Students League (1891) in New York and Cos Cob (1892) in
Connecticut, as well as through travel in Paris (1893). While studying in
Paris, he met the French impressionist painter, Alfred Sisley (1839-1899),
whom he greatly admired. Lawson developed a lyrical personal style
characterized by light-filled canvases with thickly applied small strokes of
paint, described as a “crushed jewel” technique by his contemporaries.
Settled in New York City by 1898, the nearby Hudson, Harlem, and East
rivers became important subjects for his early paintings. Spring Thaw
evokes luminous color, vibrating atmosphere and the sensation of
flickering light across the canvas.
Edward Redfield
American, 1869-1965
Bucks County Winter
1898
Oil on canvas
Collection of The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky; gift of Mrs. Mattie
Schmidt Bowyer in memory of her husband Charles Henry Bowyer
1946.1.12
Edward Redfield was the leader of a group of painters who worked in the
area around New Hope, Pennsylvania. Raised in Camden, New Jersey, he
moved to Philadelphia in the 1880s to study at the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts. In 1889, he traveled to Paris and studied at the Académie
Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1891, one of his winter landscapes
was included in the annual juried exhibition known as the Paris Salon.
Upon his return to the United States, Redfield settled in Pennsylvania and
continued his interest in depicting snow scenes and transient effects of
light and weather. In Bucks County Winter, Redfield used swift, thin
brushstrokes and a reduced color palette to capture the simplicity of the
barren winter landscape.
Willard Leroy Metcalf
American, 1858-1925
Buttercup Time
1920
Oil on canvas
Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, Museum purchase
1926.1
Between about 1904 and 1920, Willard Metcalf worked in several artists’
colonies, including Old Lyme in Connecticut and Cornish in New Hampshire.
During these extended stays, he depicted typical New England scenery,
which he infused with Impressionist techniques that emphasize the
immediate and sensory experience of the landscape. Buttercup Time
portrays a springtime scene in a rural New England village with its
characteristic wood-frame houses and churches. This sweeping vista of a
bright meadow was likely painted in Woodbury, Connecticut. Metcalf
rendered forms in a series of rapidly applied, parallel brushstrokes that
create a shimmering effect and capture the transience of a spring day as
clouds move swiftly overhead.
Willard Leroy Metcalf
American, 1858-1925
The Thawing Brook
1917
Oil on canvas
The Columbus Museum, Georgia,
Gift of Jack Melchers Passailaigue, Sr.
in memory of his late devoted wife,
Mary Flournoy Passailaigue
Following studies in Europe between 1883 and 1888, Willard Metcalf
settled in New York to work as an illustrator, teacher and painter. Metcalf
is best known as a painter of rural landscapes that emphasized the
changing seasons and qualities of light. Thawing Brook depicts Blow-MeDown Brook in Plainfield, New Hampshire where Metcalf spent many
winters and summers after 1909. Like Monet, he focused on the inherent
geometry in this landscape, the stream’s zig-zag, suggesting movement in
space and time. Carefully composed for balance and measured recession
into the distance, this painting conveys the immediacy of a landscape
painted outdoors according to Impressionist methods.
William Merritt Chase
American, 1849-1916
Shinnecock Hills
c. 1892
Oil on canvas
Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Eva Underhill Holbrook Memorial
Collection of American Art; Gift of Alfred H. Holbrook
1945.14
William Merritt Chase was an influential teacher at the Art Students League
in New York and two schools that he founded, the New York School of Art
and Shinnecock Summer School of Art. Chase was instrumental in
introducing American artists to new artistic approaches, such as the
practice of working outdoors and painting directly on canvas without
preliminary drawing. He gained a familiarity with Impressionism through
travel to Paris in 1881-1884. He especially admired the Impressionists’
concern with light and atmosphere, and cited Monet as a specific example.
Shinnecock Hills captures the remoteness of its location on eastern Long
Island.
The summary brushstrokes, use of diagonals as a compositional device and
the suggestion of a fleeting moment, especially in the cloudy sky and
shadows on the ground, indicate a response to Impressionist style and
techniques.
John Leslie Breck
American, born in China, 1860-1899
Grey Day on the Charles
1894
Oil on canvas
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. J. Harwood and Louise B. Cochrane Fund
for American Art
90.151
The son of a naval captain, John Leslie Breck was born aboard a clipper in
the western Pacific Ocean. Following studies at elite schools in the Boston
area, he enrolled at the Royal Academy in Munich, Germany, and the
Académie Julian in Paris. He first visited Giverny in 1887 and spent much of
the next five years working in the village. Back home in Boston, he painted
Grey Day on the Charles, which captures the effects of light and shadow
under specific weather conditions. Monet gave similar titles to landscapes,
such as Bridge at Argenteuil on a Gray Day, c. 1876, which is on view on the
opposite wall. The purplish blue hues, blurred contours, and atmospheric
rendering in Breck’s painting reveal his familiarity with Monet’s landscapes,
which captured the reflection of trees and sky with extraordinary
perception.
Childe Hassam
American, 1859-1935
Springtime Vision
1900
Oil on canvas
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Bequest of Ruth P. Phillips
2005.23.1
Childe Hassam’s paintings of quaint New England coastal towns such as
Gloucester, Massachusetts, or Newport, Rhode Island, were popular
among collectors who greatly admired the visual energy and gorgeous
saturation of color and light in his landscapes. Focusing his creative
energies on depicting coastlines, colonial churches, harbors and the floral
environment, Hassam produced some of his most celebrated paintings in
these scenic locales—works that underscored the pleasant aspects of daily
life and alluded to his own New England heritage. Hassam’s Springtime
Vision is a sweeping view of trees and a rocky coastline with a view out to
sea that denies any evidence of man’s presence and instead focuses on the
pristine, wild environment of the area.
Childe Hassam
American, 1859-1935
Northeast Gorge at Appledore
1912
Oil on canvas
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Museum purchase by
exchange, gift of Louise H. Courtelis with additional funds provided by Michael A.
Singer
2004.22
Northeast Gorge at Appledore depicts the rocky ledges and roughly piled
gorges of Appledore Island, one of the Isles of Shoals, a series of small
islands off the New Hampshire coast. From the mid-1880s to 1916, Childe
Hassam summered on Appledore, where his friend Celia Laighton Thaxter
(1835-1894) had established an informal salon of writers, musicians and
artists. The asymmetrical composition of Northeast Gorge at Appledore,
with its rocky cliffs rising toward the right, recalls Monet’s boldly
asymmetrical landscapes of the 1880s and 1890s. Hassam would have seen
examples in exhibitions in Paris, Boston and New York. Some of Hassam’s
Appledore pictures depict the Northeast headlands with a solitary cliff-top
cottage silhouetted against the open sea beyond, thus sharing
compositional elements with Monet’s paintings like Rising Tide at Pourville,
which is included in the present exhibition.
Childe Hassam
American, 1859-1935
Ironbound
1896
Oil on canvas
Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Gift of Laura and Sugurd Hersloff in
memory of their father, Nils Hersloff
1957.003
Childe Hassam was born into an old New England family in Dorchester
(now part of Boston), Massachusetts. He studied art in Boston before
enrolling at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1886. While in France, he
exhibited a painting in the prestigious Paris Salon and traveled to
Normandy. Settled in New York by 1889, Hassam concentrated on painting
contemplative New England landscapes. Although described by his
contemporaries as “the American Monet,” he downplayed his connection
to the French Impressionists. Ironbound is a breathtaking view of the cliffs
of Ironbound Island in Frenchman’s Bay, Maine. The cliffs’ rocky surfaces
are animated by broken strokes of color and reflected light, recalling the
dramatic seascapes and plunging perspectives of Monet’s Étretat paintings.
Hassam could have seen Monet’s The Manneporte near Étretat, painted in
1886, in two exhibitions held in 1895. The first was at Durand-Ruel’s gallery
in New York, and the second was at St. Botolph Club in Boston.
Maurice Brazil Prendergast
American, born in Canada, 1858-1924
Low Tide
c. 1895-1897
Oil on panel
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA, Gift of Mrs. Charles
Prendergast
86.18.40
Maurice Brazil Prendergast is best known for his optimistic portrayals of
middle-class leisure activities set in New York and Boston. He was born in
Newfoundland and grew up in Boston. Already in his thirties, Prendergast
enrolled at the popular Julian and Colarossi academies in Paris in 1891.
Following his return to the United States in 1894, he became known as a
painter of crowded urban parks and beaches inspired by French
Impressionist examples. His early oils are generally small works on wood
panels, painted in a freely brushed, expressive manner. Low Tide is a
carefree image of children playing in the sand along the shore. Prendergast
rendered details such as their faces and clothing with spontaneously
applied strokes of color and applied highlights to capture the sparkling
effects of light and movement.
Maurice Brazil Prendergast
American, born in Canada, 1858-1924
Surf, Nantasket
c. 1900-1905
Watercolor and pencil on paper
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA, Gift of Mrs. Charles
Prendergast
86.18.60
Maurice Prendergast captured joyous scenes of leisure set in coastal parks
and beaches near Boston. Before 1909, he worked mostly in watercolor and
painted relatively few oils. Surf, Nantasket demonstrates his concern with
the chromatic range, sunlight effects, and casual subject matter of
Impressionism. Women and girls with hats and parasols, their dresses
blowing in the wind, frolic along the rocky shoreline on a cloudy day. His
fluid handling of the watercolor medium lends a nervous vitality to the
composition. Prendergast freely sketched the scene in pencil before adding
the watercolor. The underlying drawing is visible in some areas of the
composition.
John Henry Twachtman
American, 1853-1902
The Little White Bridge
c. 1896
Oil on canvas
Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Eva Underhill Holbrook Memorial
Collection of American Art; Gift of Alfred H. Holbrook
1945.90
A native of Cincinnati, John Henry Twachtman studied art at the
progressive Royal Academy in Munich in the 1870s. Further study at the
Académie Julian in Paris in 1883-1885 included painting excursions in
Normandy. During this period, his palette lightened and his technique
became more atmospheric, a stylistic evolution that aligned him with the
Impressionist aesthetic. He painted four views of the white footbridge on
his property, suggesting the influence of Monet’s tendency to work in
series. Yet Twachtman altered the vantage point in each of his bridge
pictures. While Monet returned to the same scene in order to capture
changing effects of light at different times of day, Twachtman’s aim was
more likely to capture the bridge with new insight each time and to convey
the feelings it evoked with each encounter.
John Henry Twachtman
American, 1853-1902
Horseneck Falls
c. 1900
Oil on canvas
The Columbus Museum, Georgia; Museum purchase made possible by the Ella E.
Kirven Charitable Lead Trust for Acquisitions
Following studies in Paris in the 1880s, John Henry Twachtman taught in
New York City and at the art colony at Cos Cob in Connecticut, which was a
center for the development of Impressionism in the United States. In 1889,
he settled with his family on a farm in then-rural Greenwich, Connecticut.
Horseneck Falls, one of his many studies of the brook on his property, is a
lyrical view painted with feathery brushstrokes in silver-gray tones and
subdued blues and mauves. The blurred effect of his brushwork
demonstrates his adaptation of the strategies of Impressionism.
Responding to Twachtman’s landscapes of the 1890s, one reviewer
remarked that Twachtman came “nearer than any New York artist to
solving some of the problems of plein aire [sic] that Monet has set down”
(New York Sun, 1893, 6).
The Vibrance of Urbanism
Jonas Lie
American, born in Norway, 1880-1940
Dusk on Lower Broadway
c. 1910
Oil on canvas
Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Gift of the family in memory of Dr.
James B. Thomas, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Winter Park, FL
1957.064
Jonas Lie gained recognition for his picturesque views of New York City and
intensely colorful scenes of New England. He emigrated from Norway to
the United States in 1893 and studied at New York’s Art Students League
and the National Academy of Design. During a return trip to Norway in
1906, he traveled to Paris and was profoundly influenced by Monet’s use of
color and light. He regularly returned to Paris to maintain his international
artistic contacts. The bravura brushwork and blue hazy atmosphere
punctuated by rays of sunshine in Dusk on Lower Broadway suggest Lie’s
familiarity with Monet’s Thames series, painted c. 1900. One example from
this series, Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, is included in the present exhibition.
Lie shared Monet’s interest in the transformative beauty of fog and its
ability to both reveal and obscure the solidity of forms.
Guy C. Wiggins
American, 1883-1962
Columbus Circle, Winter
1911
Oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans
1911.4.2
Guy Wiggins is best known for his rural and urban landscapes, especially his
winter scenes. He began his education in the studio of his father, Carleton,
a landscape painter. He also trained briefly as an architect at the
Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn. He eventually transferred to the National
Academy of Design where he studied under William Merritt Chase, who
was instrumental in introducing him to Impressionism. Wiggins’s
knowledge of Impressionism was furthered by his association with the Old
Lyme Art Colony in Connecticut, which his father had helped found.
Wiggins’s early training in architectural drawing led to a lifelong interest in
painting New York’s landmark buildings, parks and squares. The soft focus
and loose brush technique in Columbus Circle, Winter are reminiscent of
French Impressionism, while the idealization of a snowy New York moment
reflects the American experience.
Jonas Lie
American, born in Norway, 1880-1940
Path of Gold
c. 1915
Oil on canvas
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia,
J.J. Haverty Collection
In his lifetime, Jonas Lie’s New York cityscapes were celebrated for merging
his close observation of subjects with the bright palette and vigorous
brushwork of Impressionism. One reviewer wrote: “Light has always
fascinated Mr. Lie—and his paintings . . . are notable for their unusual and
vivid light effects. He has been influenced profoundly by Claude Monet,
who he says ‘cleaned the palette of the whole world’” (“Jonas Lie Sails for
Norway,” Art News, May 1, 1926).
Gari Melchers
American, 1860-1932
Bryant Park (Twilight)
c. 1906
Oil on canvas
Gari Melchers Home and Studio, University of Mary Washington
The son of a German-born sculptor, Gari Melchers was born in Detroit and
studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Düsseldorf and the École des BeauxArts and the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1884, he founded an art colony in
the Egmonds, three small villages in northern Holland, and built his
reputation as a chronicler of Dutch peasant life. He also traveled between
studios in Holland, Paris, New York and Germany. Around 1900, Melchers
developed a modified Impressionist style that emphasized vibrant color,
natural lighting, looser brushwork and decorative pattern. In outdoor
subjects like Bryant Park (Twilight), Melchers explored the effects of snow,
moonlight and streetlights on the park as viewed from a high vantage
point.
Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Waterloo Bridge
1903
Oil on canvas
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami,
Gift of Ione T. Staley
60.057.000
Between 1899 and 1901, Monet made three trips to London where he
depicted the Waterloo and Charing Cross bridges on the river Thames at
different times of day and under different weather conditions. He observed
the river from the windows and balcony of his rooms at the fashionable
Savoy Hotel. Monet returned to his Giverny studio with his unfinished
canvases, which he completed from memory and sketches. He eventually
produced nearly one hundred paintings of this section of the river. As
Waterloo Bridge demonstrates, the series focuses on the transformative
beauty of fog, which both reveals and obscures the solidity of the bridge
and its arches. The rich atmosphere in this work was primarily the result of
smoke from bituminous coal used in houses and factories. In this version,
Monet focuses on the bridge itself and omits the factory chimneys that rise
above the bridge in other versions of the scene.
Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Bridge at Argenteuil on a Gray Day
c. 1876
Oil on canvas
Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection
1970.17.44
Before settling at his famed home in Giverny in 1883, Monet lived in the
picturesque town of Argenteuil from 1871 to 1878. Here, Monet painted
outdoors and employed seemingly spontaneous brushstrokes to capture
the changing effects of light and atmosphere under specific weather
conditions. Popular as a weekend riverside resort in the period, Argenteuil
was also a fast-changing suburb of Paris. Monet’s paintings of the village
often depict the fusion of nature with modern life as in this view of the
bridge and riverfront.
Childe Hassam
American, 1859-1935
Avenue of the Allies
1917
Oil on canvas
Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, Bequest of Elizabeth Millar (Mrs.
Bernice Frost) Bullard
1942.11
Childe Hassam painted about thirty scenes of New York City’s flag-draped
Fifth Avenue in celebration of the United States’ entry into the First World
War. In terms of its vibrant color, strong contrasts of light and dark, and
the faceless crowd below, Avenue of the Allies recalls similar works by
Monet, such as The Rue Montorgueil in Paris, Celebration of June 30, 1878
(Musée d’Orsay, Paris), which Hassam had seen and sketched as a student
in Paris. This connection to Monet was noted in the critical response to an
exhibition of Hassam’s flag paintings at New York’s Durand-Ruel Gallery in
November 1918. “It will hardly be denied,” wrote one reviewer, “that Mr.
Hassam is, as far as technique goes, a disciple of Claude Monet” (“Avenue
of the Allies at Durand-Ruel’s,” American Art News, November 23, 1918, p.
2).
Childe Hassam
American, 1859-1935
Gloucester
1919
Oil on panel
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gift from the Carol &
Stephen Shey Collection
2004.41
Childe Hassam’s Gloucester is an idyllic view of the town’s urban center
and its harbor, which was an important hub for fish-packing, ironworking,
and shipbuilding industries. Here the church spire is given special
importance as it rises above the densely packed buildings of the
foreground. Bathed in bright light, it is a symbol of New England’s colonial
heritage. As Monet often did, Hassam allowed the texture of this canvas to
show through and used color to link various parts of the scene. Here, the
blues and purples of the rocks and boulders in the foreground are echoed
in the rooftops of the middle ground and the hills in the distance. Other
elements suggesting the influence of Monet include the brilliant colors,
open brushwork, the high horizon line and the sharply tilted picture plane,
which permits a sweeping view of the harbor beyond the village.
Gari Melchers
American, 1860-1932
Hudson River
c. 1907
Oil on canvas
Gari Melchers Home and Studio, University of Mary Washington
Gari Melchers’s experimentation with Impressionist color, broken
brushwork, and hazy atmospheric effects may have been influenced by his
knowledge of works by the American artists Childe Hassam and Frederick
Frieseke. Beginning in 1906, Melchers served as fine adviser to the Telfair
Academy of Arts and Sciences, now Telfair Museums, helping to secure
major paintings by both artists including works in the present exhibition:
Hassam’s Avenue of the Allies and Frieseke’s The Garden Umbrella,
Reflections (Marcelle), and The Hammock.
Maurice Brazil Prendergast
American, born in Canada, 1858-1924
Central Park, New York
c. 1900-1903; reworked later
Watercolor, pencil and gouache on paper
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA, Gift of Mrs. Charles
Prendergast
86.18.69
In Central Park, New York, Maurice Prendergast explored a theme that
would preoccupy him for decades: groups of figures decoratively arranged
into a frieze-like formation in an outdoor setting. The backdrop for this
lively scene is the Bethesda Terrace, an architectural landmark in New
York’s famed Central Park. Begun in 1859, the terrace was one of the very
first structures built in the park. Its upper and a lower terraces, connected
by two grand staircases, are clearly seen in the background. Prendergast
sketched this lively scene in pencil before painting in fluid watercolor,
applying color freely with washes of varying intensity.
Maurice Brazil Prendergast
American, born in Canada, 1858-1924
Salem Willows
1904
Oil on canvas
Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
1999.120
This painting by Maurice Prendergast is set in Salem, a historic port near
Boston. Tall willow trees on both sides of the scene frame a backdrop of
open sea populated with a number of sailing vessels. In the foreground,
crowds of brightly dressed pleasure-seekers gather at a seaside municipal
park known as Salem Willows. The park was easily accessible from Boston’s
North Shore by streetcar lines that attracted crowds to its carousel and
beach promenade. In Salem Willows, Prendergast layered pigments to
form a textured effect and overall surface pattern. These techniques would
become hallmarks of his mature work following a 1907 visit to France and
his exposure to Post-Impressionism.
Childe Hassam
American, 1859-1935
French Tea Garden (also known as The Terre-Cuite Tea Set)
1910
Oil on canvas
Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Gift of the Benwood
Foundation
1976.3.13
Although the painter Childe Hassam never visited Giverny, he learned
about Impressionism during his studies in Paris in the mid-1880s and
through exhibitions of French Impressionism in New York and Boston.
Hassam painted French Tea Garden during a return trip to Europe in 1910.
The setting is an urban garden in Paris, which offered a peaceful respite
from the noise and dirt of the city that Hassam complained about in a
letter to fellow artist J. Alden Weir. A refined lady, presumably the artist’s
wife, Maud, is seated at a small table laid with flowers and a terracotta tea
set. The two teacups on the table suggest an unseen fellow diner, yet the
woman ignores both her companion and her tea as she works at her
sewing. Her absorption in her work and the close cropping of the table add
an air of casual immediacy to the painting. In the background, a garden
structure, possibly a fountain, and a hedge of flowering bushes obscure the
view beyond.
William Glackens
American, 1870-1938
The Horse Chestnut Tree, Washington Square
c. 1915-1919
Oil on canvas
Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Museum purchase
1995.42
William Glackens studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
before traveling to Paris in 1895. Upon his return, Glackens settled in New
York and became known as a realist painter of urban subjects. Following
another visit to Europe in 1906, his style underwent a transformation as he
absorbed the soft outlines and brilliant colors of Impressionism. Monet’s
importance for his artistic development was recognized by his
contemporaries who noted that Glackens followed “in the footsteps of the
men who were the rage in artistic Paris . . . Manet, Degas, and Monet”
(W.B. M’C[ormick], “Art Notes of the Week,” New York Press, February 9,
1908, 6). Yet works like The Horse Chestnut Tree, Washington Square, with
its feathery brushwork and palette of soft pastels, reveal Glackens’s
admiration for French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919). The high
vantage point provides a sweeping view of this urban park, which is
populated mostly by strolling women and frolicking children.