$32,500
Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000
American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists
Auction: June 3, 2018 3:00:00 PM EDT
Signed 'Childe Hassam' bottom left, watercolor on paper
Sheet size: 14 x 20 in. (35.6 x 50.8cm)
Executed circa 1890.
Provenance: Collection of Garrett Chatfield Pier, New Haven, around 1910.
By descent in the family.
Skinner, Boston, sale of May 14, 1999, Lot 150.
Acquired directly from the above sale.
Private Collection, Washington D.C.
EXHIBITED:
(Possibly) "First Annual Exhibition," New York Watercolor Club, New York, New York, 1890, no. 179.
(Possibly) "Exhibition and Private Sale of Oil Paintings and Watercolors and Pastel Drawings by Childe Hassam," Doll & Richards Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, 1891, no. 36.
(Possibly) "28th Annual Exhibition," American Watercolor Society, New York, New York, 1895, no. 471.
NOTE:
A pioneering figure of American Impressionism, Frederick Childe Hassam was born in Boston in 1859. His inherent artistic talent first appeared during his early childhood, through the watercolor and drawing lessons he took at school. In the early 1880s, Hassam began taking painting classes, though by then his preference for watercolor had overtaken other media. His first solo exhibition was held in 1882, where he exhibited close to fifty watercolors at a gallery in Boston.
While Hassam's New England roots are evident in his body of work, they are never more apparent than in the paintings and watercolors he produced during his trips to the coastal towns of Gloucester, Old Lyme, Newport, and Provincetown. His numerous depictions of Gloucester, the idyllic seaside Massachusetts town, including the present work, are emblematic of his Impressionistic style. "Rain And Mist, Gloucester Harbor," executed circa 1980, features a muted color palette of pale and blues and muted earth tones. A lone sailboat sits delicately on the still surface of the water, its reflection ripples below.
This present work will be included in Stuart P. Feld and Kathleen M. Burnside's forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of the artist's work. We wish to thank Kathleen M. Burnside for her kind assistance in cataloguing this lot.