biographie de Childe HASSAM (1859-1935)

Birth place: Dorchester, near Boston, MA

Death place: East Hampton, NY

Addresses: Boston, MA; Paris, France; NYC/summers in New England (Cos Cob, Old Lyme)

Profession: Painter, etcher, lithographer

Studied: apprenticed as a wood engraver to George E. Johnston, Boston, 1876; Boston AC, 1877-78; privately with Wm. Rimmer and Gaugengigl in Boston, 1879; Acad. Julian, Paris, with Boulanger, Lefebvre, Doucet, 1886-89.

Exhibited: Boston AC, 1882-96 (prize), 1898-1909; Brooklyn AA, 1883, 1891; PAFA, 1884-85, 1888-36 (gold, 1899, 1910) (prize, 1906) (gold for etching, 1931); Paris Salon, 1887-90; Paris Expo Universelle, 1889 (bronze med.), 1901 (med.); NAD, 1893-1900, 1918 (prize), 1924 (prize), 1926 (prize); AIC; Phila. AC, 1892 (gold med., watercolor), 1915 (gold); Columbian Expo., Chicago, 1893 (gold); Cleveland AA, 1893 (prize); SAA, 1895 (prize), 1905 (prize), 1906 (prize); SNBA, 1897, 1898; CI, 1898 (med.); Ten Am. Painters, 1898-1918; Pan.-Am. Expo., Buffalo, 1901 (gold); St. Louis Expo., 1904 (gold); Worcester, 1906 (prize); Corcoran Gal., 1907-35 (bronze med., 1910, gold med., 1912); AWCS, 1912 (prize), 1919 (prize); Newport AA, 1912 (inaugural); Armory Show, 1913; S. Indp. A., 1917, 1919-20; Phila. WCC, 1919 (prize); Sesqui-Centennial Expo., Phila., 1926 (gold); WMAA, 1932-33; MMA, 1977 (survey of prints); Adelson Galleries, NYC, 1999.

Member: ANA, 1902; NA, 1906; AWCS; SAA; Assoc. Am. P&S; NYWCC (founder); Boston AC; Ten Am. Painters (founding mem., 1898); Pastel Soc. of NY; Munich Secession; Soc. Nat. des Beaux-Arts; NIAL, AAAL.

Work: MMA; BMFA; NMAA; NGA; PAFA; AIC; CGA; RISD; Club House, Easthampton, NY; Cincinnati Mus.; CI; TMA; Buffalo Acad FA; Worcester Art Mus.; Phillips Acad., Andover, MA; Indianapolis AA; Detroit IA; Flint IA; Minneapolis Inst. Art; Brooklyn Mus.; St. Louis AM; LACMA; Smith College; AGAA; MusÈe d'Orsay

Comments: (Born Frederick Childe Hassam) Internationally recognized as one of the greatest American Impressionist painters. Early in his career he was a freelance illustrator for Harper"s, Scribner"s, and Century. In 1883, he made the first of four trips to France. His paintings of this period often captured the atmospheric effects of rainy days at twilight on Boston"s streets. It was during his second trip to Paris (1886-89) that his palette adopted the lighter and brighter colors of the French Impressionists. From 1890-on, he painted scenes in NYC (such as his famous "Flag series") and spent several summers (1890-94) painting floral watercolors of the poet Celia Thaxter's garden on Appledore, off the coast of New Hampshire (Hassam's watercolors illustrated Thaxter's An Island Garden, published in 1894). Hassam spent summers (between 1896-1916) painting cheerful landscapes at the art colonies at Cos Cob and Old Lyme, CT, where he was a major influence. In Cos Cob, in 1915, he took up etching seriously, occupied with architectural subjects as well as landscapes. From 1919-on, he lived in East Hampton, LI. He was a prolific artist, producing more than 2,500 works, and upon his death his entire collection was bequeathed to the Am. Acad. of Arts & Letters, and was later sold by Macbeth and Milch Galleries to establish a fund to benefit museum collections all over the U.S. Signature note: He consistently signed as "Childe Hassam," but his prints and drawings often bear his initials within a circle.

Sources: WW33; Donelson F. Hoopes, Childe Hassam (1979); David Park Curry, Childe Hassam: An Island Garden Revisited (exh. cat., Denver Art Mus., 1990); Fuller Griffith, The Lithographs of Childe Hassam: A Catalog (Wash., DC, 1962); Ilene Susan Fort, The Flag Paintings of Childe Hassam (Los Angeles, LACMA, 1988); Gerdts, American Impressionism; Connecticut and American Impressionism 162-63 (w/repro.); Rbt. Workman, The Eden of America (RISD, 1986, p.74); Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 329, 353; Art in Conn.: The Impressionist Years; Falk, Exh. Record Series; Adelson, Cantor and Gerdts, Childe Hassam, Impressionist (New York City:Abbeville Press, 1999)

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