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About Childe Hassam
Frederick Childe Hassam, perhaps the most famous American impressionist after *Mary Cassatt, was the son of Frederick Fitch Hassam and Rosa Hathorn Hassam, who was related to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Frederick, a cutler and collector of American antiques, lost his business in a fire in November 1872 and Childe Hassam was forced to leave high school early to seek employment. After a few weeks in an accounting position, he worked for a wood engraver named George E. Johnston. Hassam appeared as "draughtsman" in the Boston city directory (1879-1881), and in 1882 he was listed as "artist." His earliest endeavors were illustrations for children’s books, and for periodicals: Harper’s, The Century and Scribner’s.
Hassam’s documented formal art training began at the Lowell Institute in 1878, where he studied drawing under William Rimmer, the famed anatomist. Shortly after this time, he joined the Paint and Clay Club (founded in 1880) and he studied life painting at the *Boston Art Club’s evening classes, and privately with Ignaz Marcel Gaugengigl (1855-1932), a socialite, portrait painter, and later director of the *Guild of Boston Artists, who combined the Munich realist tradition with *Vermeer’s influence. Hassam also would have been influenced by *William Morris Hunt, who was in fact Hassam’s relative on his father’s side. Hunt had already published his influential Talks on Art (1879), which Hassam most likely read. Hassam himself acknowledged his debt to the nineteenth-century British watercolor tradition as a formative influence on his art. Already in 1883 he was teaching watercolor classes part-time, and that summer he made his first trip to Europe, accompanied by his friend Edmund H. Garrett (1853-1929). Both decided on the Grand Tour type of excursion, which included many countries: Hassam executed watercolors at every stop on the way, between Glasgow and Naples. Sixty-seven of these works were exhibited at the Williams and Everett Gallery in late 1883. Hassam may have been back in Boston in September in time to see *Durand-Ruel’s *Foreign Exhibition, which included works by *Manet, *Pissarro, *Monet, *Renoir, and *Sisley.
Hassam married Kathleen Maude Doane on 1 February 1884, who would give him moral support throughout his artistic life. Following the European tour, Hassam continued working as a free-lance illustrator, but executed a series of canvases en *plein air, partly under the influence of Hunt’s published lectures. Hunt was forever extolling the virtues of working directly from nature, in order to capture the effects of atmosphere and light, though he also relied on his memory. Hassam’s paintings were beginning to be noticed by Boston critics, such as the one known as "Greta," who called A Back Road of 1884 (Brooklyn Museum) a "brilliant piece . . . a solid, vigorous painting, full of bright air and light." The palette recalls the forthright earth tones of *Corot and the background suggests *Barbizon School precedents. Other works of this period (1885-86) focus on Hassam’s neighborhood on Columbus Avenue: Columbus Avenue, Rainy Day (Worcester Art Museum) and Rainy Day, Boston (Toledo Museum of Art), paintings characterized by a monochromatic, naturalistic palette and a certain topographical accuracy. Hassam might owe something to *Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day, dated 1877 (Art Institute of Chicago), but other influences are probable: Hiesinger names Giovanni Boldini, Jean Béraud and others as "urban genre painters" with whom Hassam would have been familiar.
Like the American Giverny group, Hassam claimed that he "knew nothing of Monet" and "I had never heard of Renoir." The fact that Renoir was the former occupant of Hassam’s temporary studio on the boulevard Rochechouart makes one wonder if Hassam was perhaps overstating his independence as an American artist. By the spring of 1888, Hassam was no longer working at the Académie Julian: the streets of Paris became his exclusive painting environment. His output reveals no one established style: Carriage Parade (The Haggin Museum, Stockton, CA) and other canvases contain large areas of black, while the pastel At the Grand Prix in Paris (Corcoran Gallery) recalls Mary Cassatt’s work. On the other hand, Geraniums, in the Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY, is a highly decorative and original creation. A large work called Autumn (lost) was shown in the Salon of 1889 where it was praised as "full of poetic feeling, unmarred by the realism of a Paris street scene." Hassam remained in Paris for the Exposition Universelle, where he exhibited four works and won a medal.
Hassam made an important statement at this time on American art:
The American Section in the Universal has convinced me for ever of the capability of Americans to claim a school. Inness, Whistler, Sargent and plenty of men just as well able to cope in their own chosen line with anything done over here. But as long as a crowd of apostates from America who have more money than brains continue to go to France to study for such a long time, sometimes so long that they finish by staying there altogether, there will be little growth of an American school.
Hassam pointed out that *Inness, an original American talent, never studied in France, and he was concerned that too much French influence could create a stifling sense of conformity among American painters, what the "Prix de Rome system has done . . . for France." On the way home to Boston, the Hassams stopped in England to visit London, Canterbury, and other cities.
By November 1889, the Hassams were in New York, where they decided to live. Upon his return, Hassam "had become a ‘modern’ artist not only in his method of paint handling, but also in his increased enthusiasm for subjects of everyday life." 1889 was a pivotal year for New York architecture, since both the steel I-beam and total steel-frame construction were introduced (the latter in the Tower Building), paving the way for skyscrapers. One building in progress was George B. Post’s Union Trust Building, still in the neo-Romanesque style. The true skyscrapers were yet to come, and Hassam would show an interest in them, as in his proto-*Ash Can work Hovel and the Skyscraper, 1904 (Mr. and Mrs. Meyer Potamkin). But in the 1890s, Hassam’s art reflected a quieter side of New York: the old squares, elegant parks, and tree-lined avenues that made up old New York. As usual, Hassam began in his own "front yard," which was a studio apartment at 95 Fifth Avenue. At this time, Fifth Avenue was quite fashionable, still lined with trees, its sidewalks filled with smartly dressed promenaders. It was still primarily residential, with front yards full of flowers, and the many stately mansions added to Fifth Avenue’s magnificence. Only later was the avenue widened to accommodate commercial interests, when "vulgar tradespeople" appeared. Henry Collins Brown attested that "Fifth Avenue never again touched the dizzy heights she achieved in the Nineties. . . . It was a noble thoroughfare, impressive beyond description and the most celebrated highway in the Western World!" Hassam himself proclaimed "There is no boulevard in all Paris that compares to our own Fifth Avenue." Theodore Dreiser added that Fifth Avenue was "the one really perfect show street in the world."
Hassam wasted no time in promoting his art. He took part in the *American Water Color Society’s exhibition, which opened on 31 January 1890. On that night, Hassam met *John H. Twachtman and *J. Alden Weir, who would become his cherished colleagues. Hassam joined the *Society of American Artists and became the first president of the *New York Water Color Club. His dizzying exhibition activities – in early 1890 alone – show how serious he was, right at the beginning of his career. Washington Arch in Spring (The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC) and Lower Fifth Avenue (Private Collection), both from 1890, give an idea of Hassam’s style at this point in time. The former is luminous with *blue and purple shadows, *broken color, very little black pigment, and an overall sunny cheerfulness. Lower Fifth Avenue contains a band of black forms in the middleground but the massive church structure, described in nuanced violet tones and shown in contre-jour lighting, forces a comparison with Monet’s Houses of Parliament series, executed at the turn of the century. The point is not to suggest influences, but to show a similar impressionist mentality. Hassam was following Monet’s technique of simplification, objectively painting objects as certain shapes and colors: "the impression [an artist] gets on the spot," in Hassam’s own words. Hassam was a self-proclaimed seeker of the truth. Impressionism, Hassam explained, means "the only truth because it means going straight to nature for inspiration, and not allowing to dictate to your brush. . . . The true impressionism is *realism."
Others besides classicists would have questioned Hassam’s cheerful scenes of Sunday strollers on Fifth Avenue as representatives of the truth. Exactly contemporary to Washington Arch in Spring was a sensational publication called How the Other Half Lives, written by Jacob A. Riis, which was an early sociological study of New York’s tenements. Riis was certainly revealing another kind of truth in the "sunless and joyless" back-alleys, hovels, and wretched lodging houses. This world, far from the opulent Cornelius Vanderbilt Mansion on Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets, would not be an appropriate subject for painting in America until the Eight showed the way to unvarnished urban realism. This problem constitutes another chapter in the history of American art, and lies beyond our scope. To be fair, Hassam was painting what was his world: scenes of everyday life that were "aesthetic and fitting subjects for pictures." Hassam belonged to the world of *Henry James, not that of Theodore Dreiser.
Like many of his colleagues, Hassam made a comfortable living and was at leisure to travel. His career exemplified the *Good Life of the American impressionist. One of his favorite retreats was the *Isles of Shoals, on the coast between New Hampshire and Maine. Some of the earliest artists to discover the region include Ellen Robbins (1828-1905), a flower painter, Arthur Quartley (1839-1886), a marine painter, and William Morris Hunt, Hassam’s relative, who had been invited to Levi and *Celia Thaxter’s cottage in 1879. Hunt, exhausted from painting murals for the Capitol in Albany, was discouraged by a series of personal and professional tragedies. He was found "lying face down in the small pond directly behind the cottage" on 8 September. William Trost Richards (1833-1905) visited the Isles briefly and Alfred Thompson Bricher (1837-1908) made a sketching trip there during the summer of 1883.
Obviously fleeing the sad events at Appledore Island, Hassam traveled to Havana, where he remained during January 1895. That summer he was back in Gloucester with *Willard Metcalf. Hassam would return to Cape Ann intermittently; his lithographs executed there document his visits in the later years. Hassam exhibited his works regularly during the 1890s. The American Art Galleries in New York sponsored an important one-man show for Hassam in February 1896, which was a kind of critical test of his oeuvre. The reviewer of The Sun thought the artist was carrying *high-keyed color to extremes, while the Art Interchange described the works as "paint for paint’s sake," and longed for a "return to less extreme methods." Although the latter critic acknowledged that Hassam "is always interesting," the exhibition was a failure financially. This was partly a consequence of the economy. Also in 1896, Hassam discovered *Cos Cob.
The Hassams left New York for another European voyage in December, apparently to rekindle Childe’s artistic inspiration and to explore new directions. From Naples, they traveled to Rome, Florence, then Paris, where he exhibited at the new Salon of the *Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in the spring of 1897. This Salon, initiated in 1890 by the government, held its exhibitions in the Champ-de-Mars. *Carolus-Duran was considered the leader of the liberal Société, which included famous members: Puvis de Chavannes, Rodin, *Alfred Stevens, *Sargent, Eugène Carrière and Giovanni Boldini. Elizabeth Nourse (1859-1938) had also been invited to show there in its premiere exhibition. Hiesinger describes Hassam’s new technique of applying "pigment in extremely rapid, summary strokes. . . . the painted surfaces are often quite thin, but, at their best, possess an engaging sense of impulsiveness and a striking immediacy of effect." In addition, his palette became even lighter. Adelson sees a move away from impressionism, with more surface pattern in the decorative style of the *Nabis. From Paris, Hassam went to London, then back to Pont-Aven and *Le Pouldu, and in the fall of 1897 the Hassams returned to New York with a slew of canvases.
A group of ten painters, shortly to be known as the Ten, including Childe Hassam, announced in December 1897 that they were resigning from the Society of American Artists. While the Society had been turning into a more conservative institution, the group’s main complaint was against the "commercialism" – that is, the selling of art seemed to be the Society’s main preoccupation, without regard to artistic quality: "They want to bring the exhibition down to the level of the picture buying public, and they have no sympathy with true art," explained an anonymous member of the Ten. The group remarked that many in the Society were not really practicing artists and that the standard of the exhibitions had been lowered. Later, Hassam claimed that the idea to form a new organization was his. The Ten promoted a new way of hanging exhibitions: all paintings were hung at eye level. Moreover, there was no jury and no prizes.
The Ten’s first show opened on 30 March 1898 in *Durand-Ruel’s New York gallery: Hassam contributed seven works. Reviewers still found his paintings to be too radical. But in reality, the Ten was hardly a group of revolutionaries. *Tarbell, *DeCamp, and *Benson evoked the genteel world of the
Boston salon, while *Simmons was primarily a mural painter. Twachtman was innovative but he did not have long to live, and William Merritt Chase, who would replace Twachtman as a member of the Ten in 1905, would soon be declared old-fashioned. As a member of the Ten, Hassam had probably reached his peak but in the first decade of the new century he found a new modern subject to paint: the New York skyscraper. In 1902, the year of Twachtman’s death, and Hassam’s election to the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, the Flatiron Building was erected as the world’s tallest building. Before the first world war, many impressive structures, including the Woolworth Building (1910-13), rose up to usher in the new era to the detriment of charming old New York. Hansom carriages were being replaced by elevated electric railways and motorized buses. The financial district was taking on a new cavernous look, which Hassam captured in his painting entitled Lower Manhattan, dated 1907 (Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University). The tall and narrow canvas is perfect to emphasize the soaring verticality of the buildings, which dwarf the crowd below, in which figures have been reduced to Monet-like "tongue-lickings."
While waiting for a new apartment to occupy at 130 West 57th Street, Hassam traveled to eastern Oregon in 1908, where he took pleasure in being "the furthest removed from railroad and telegraph in the United States. . . the least accessible place on this continent." In January 1909 the Hassams were able to move into their apartment. At this time he was better off financially and he faced life with renewed optimism. His travel schedule remained full, from Portland, Maine to the Shoals, Portsmouth, Gloucester, and Ridgefield, Connecticut. Hassam sold his lovely Spring Morning to the *Carnegie Institute at the impressive figure of $6,000. While the figure at the open window is a romantic theme, the overall concept parallels the Aesthetic Movement’s interest in formal composition, Japanese screens and elegantly posed women. Besides having a lack of *subject matter, the almost Whistlerian painting emphasizes an arranged composition: note the implied central oval form.
In June 1910 the Hassams were back in Europe. Scholars detect the influence of French *post-impressionist painters at this point, namely *Bonnard and *Vuillard; Hassam did meet with Henri Le Sidanier (1862-1939), a *neo-impressionist who was fond of muted, twilight scenes. Yet the result of the trip was more a digression to quiet, classical form: The Table Garden of 1910 (Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst), dominated by a strong vertical female figure in an oriental robe, continues the aestheticism of Spring Morning, as does The Breakfast Room, Winter Morning, 1911 (Worcester Art Museum). Part of the so-called Window series, these works are examples of "modern classicism," while they are entirely impressionist in technique. The Window series was a huge success: The New York Window won Hassam the Corcoran Gold Medal at the gallery’s Fourth Exhibition in 1912, where it was purchased for the permanent collection. Also in 1912 the *Association of Painters and Sculptors invited Hassam to become a member, however he declined. Yet in 1913, he took part in the *Armory Show, organized by the AAPS, exhibiting twelve works in all, while in a letter to Forbes Watson in May, he denounced modernism, by proclaiming ". . . this is the age of quacks, and quackery, and New York City is their objective point." The fact that Hassam exhibited seems to suggest that classic American impressionism was deemed worthy to be included in an exhibition of modernist art; even though impressionism had been surpassed by other movements, it was significant within the broad picture of modernism’s development.
Later in the year, Hassam went to San Francisco to begin a mural commission for the forthcoming *Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. His lunette in the Court of Palms was a huge failure. The eleven by twenty-two foot panel, Fruits and Flowers, represents two symmetrically seated nude women in profile. The unfortunate composition reveals what a weak figure painter Hassam was, unlike most American impressionists. The figures resemble paper cut-outs pasted onto the landscape, with very little modeling, and no relation to the surrounding atmosphere. Even the boring arrangement of fruit below has an amateurish look. The three nude children appear to be based on stiff Quattrocento models. *Eugen Neuhaus lamented, "Nobody every suspected Childe Hassam of being a decorator, no matter how admittedly important a place he holds in the field of easel painting. . . . In the physical center of the composition nothing of interest happens, and the composition breaks almost in two. The coloring is insipid. . . . " Compared to Frank Brangwyn’s masterful panels, Hassam’s is rather embarrassing.
Perhaps a reaction against the mural’s poor reception, Hassam took up etching again, a small-scale medium he had learned in his youth: in 1916 alone he executed over sixty prints. Hassam’s friend Joseph Pennell (1860-1926) convinced him to pursue lithography, then he turned to his famous Flag series. During the war, Hassam offered his services to committees on the home front and donated profits from the sales of his paintings to war relief. After America entered the war, Hassam hoped the government would send him to France to make a visual record but his suggestion was ignored. The Flag series was a tremendously successful venture for Hassam. An array of multi-colored, colossal flags hanging from New York’s skyscrapers was obviously the perfect subject for virtuoso impressionist brushwork. Never before could Hassam devote himself to the celebration of pure color, and with this series he went beyond impressionism to engage in *abstraction, bending the rules of perspective, simplifying forms, and emphasizing patterns. The series was exhibited at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in November 1918, shortly after the war ended. Fort points out that the twenty-four paintings "extolled the spirit of a new America, an international power to be reckoned with. . . . The symbolism of Hassam’s flag paintings was realized during his lifetime and became one of the prime rationales for establishing the series as a war memorial."
As a retreat from the bustle of the big city, Hassam spent the summer of 1919 in Gloucester, where he participated in an exhibition along with *William Glackens, *Louis Kronberg, *Hayley Lever, Charles Hopkinson, *Maurice Prendergast, and John Sloan. In the 1920s, Hassam began to paint in East Hampton at his house called "Willow Bend," formerly owned by *Ruger Donoho. 1920-35 marks Hassam’s late period, which shows a uniformity of style, except for the classical and mythological landscapes that continue his marginal interest in nudes in landscape settings, evident throughout his career. Hassam explained that these were attempts at "treating the modern with the classic." Hassam enjoyed the financial boom of the 20s, continued to win prestigious awards, but traveled less. As a master American impressionist, he regarded modernism as a "gigantic hoax," and he became bitterly anti-European.
Hassam suffered a stroke, possibly brought on by excessive drinking, then a lengthy illness; he died on 27 August 1935. One of his very last works, Mrs. Hassam’s Garden at East Hampton, 1934 (Private collection) is an astonishing finale to a brilliant career. The beautiful composition is as bold as anything by *Van Gogh. The brushwork is likewise strongly accented, and the apples in the foreground have a freedom, forcefulness and joie de vivre that rivals Matisse. It shows Hassam was still searching, and had not sunken into an uncreative decadence, as many have assumed. A recent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art honored the painter ("Childe Hassam, American Impressionist," July-September 2004).
REF.
Greta, 1885; Ives, 1892; Morton, 1901-A; Dewing et al, 1903; Caffin, 1907, pp. 276-280; Huneker, 1907-H; Huneker, 1908-D; I. White, 1911; Laurvik, in Catalogue de Luxe, 1915, pp. 20, 30-32; Neuhaus, 1915-A, pp. 58-59; Neuhaus, 1915-B, pp. 68-69; Zigrosser, 1915; Hassam, 1916; Weitenkampf, 1918; Eliot Clark, 1920-A; Pousette-Dart and Haskell, 1922; Cortissoz, 1923-A, pp. 138-143; Price, 1923-B; Retrospective Exhibition, 1926; Hassam, 1927; Wheeler, 1927, pp. 115-123; Jackman, 1928, pp. 169-171; LaFollette, 1929, pp. 168, 212, 214; McGuire, 1929; Morris, 1930, pp. 188-190; Neuhaus, 1931, pp. 264-267; Woolf, 1934; Isham, 1936, pp. 389, 453; Baur, 1937, pp. 3, 10-11; Adams, 1938; Hassam, 1938; Saint-Gaudens, 1941, pp. 195-197; Pagano, 1946, cat. no. 54; Art Students League, 1951, p. 14; Richardson, 1956, pp. 304-305; Griffith, 1962; Williams, 1965; Mendelowitz, 1970, pp. 307, 324; Gerdts and Burke, 1971, pp. 207, 210-211; Hoopes, 1972, pp. 66-77; Domit, 1973, pp. 88-96; Howat and Pilgrim, 1973, pp. 81-84; Mitchell, 1973, p. 128; O’Gorman, 1973-A, pp. 29-31, 62-65; Phillips, 1973, vol. 2, pp. 37-40; Boyle, 1974, pp. 146-157; Eldredge, 1974; Gerdts, 1974, pp. 143-144; Fink and Taylor, 1975, cat. no. 125; National Academy of Design, 1975, p. 69; Art Students League, 1975-76, p. 45; Wilmerding, 1976, pp. 155-157, 290; Hoopes, 1977-A; Mandel, 1977, pp. 191-193, 197-198; A Stern and Lovely Scene, 1978; Brown, et al., 1978, pp. 310-311; Czestochowski, 1978; Hoopes, 1979; Bienenstock, 1980; Burke, 1980, pp. 351-364; Gerdts, 1980, pp. 57-61; Novak and Blaugrund, 1980, pp. 172-174; Pisano, 1981-A, cat. no. 39; Pisano, 1981-B; David W. Scott, in Encyclopedia of American Art, 1981, pp. 272-273; Impressionnistes Américains, 1982, pp. 88-97; Gerdts, 1984; Hirschl and Adler Galleries, 1985, cat. no. 30; Pisano, 1985, pp. 136-141; Fairbrother, 1986-A; American Traditions in Watercolor, 1987, pp. 152-155, 205; Weber, 1987; Weber and Gerdts, 1987; Fort, 1988; Preato, Langer, and Cox, 1988, pp. 35, 53-54, 73; Curry, 1990; A. Gerdts, 1990, pp. 100-101; Gerdts, 1990, vol. 1, pp. 38, 150-151, vol. 3, p. 195; May, 1990; Ten American Painters, 1990; Gerdts, 1991, pp. 52-71; Hiesinger, 1991; Art in the White House, 1992, pp. 238-239, 316; Gerdts, 1992-A, pp. 236-243; Gerdts, 1992-B, cat. nos. 41-42; Point of View, 1992, pp. 70-71, 140; Strazdes, et al., 1992, pp. 233-238; Reed and Troyen, 1993, pp. 131-136; Revisiting the White City, 1993, pp. 257-258; Gerdts, 1994, pp. 25-31, 35, 38-39, 42, 46-49, 52-57, ff; Hiesinger, 1994; Weinberg, Bolger and Curry, 1994; Hughes, 1997, pp. 264-265; Peters, 1997, cat. nos. 10 and 17; Boone, 1998-99, pp. 70-71; Adelson, 1999; Adelson, Cantor and Gerdts, 1999; Broun, 1999; Love and Marshall, 1999, pp. 46-47; Picturing Old New England, 1999, pp. 82-83, 98-99, 212; Kathleen M. Burnside, in Encyclopedia of American Art before 1914, 2000, pp. 215-216; Prelinger, 2000, pp. 46-57; Painting the Town, 2000, cat. no. 50; Davies, 2001, pp. 40-43; Sobieski, n.d., pp. 76-77. |
Paintings by Childe Hassam
| Newburgh, New York |
| watercolor on paper: 15 x 21 inches |
| signed and dated 1914:lower right |
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