Childe Hassam (1859-1935) created an immense body of work in the Impressionist style, comprising oil paintings, watercolours, pastels, and prints. His distinctive and enchanting images, with their focus on effects of colour and light, are widely admired and are included in the collections of every major museum in the United States. In this handsomely illustrated book, the authors, all experts in the field, take a fresh look at Hassam's responses to his vibrant and complicated era. Their texts study his striking portrayals of cities and country sites in America and Europe. Also explored are his late works - those completed after 1900 - when Hassam felt increasingly challenged by both modern life and modern art. These include tranquil interior vignettes, iconic images of New England churches, and his great Flag series. Hassam's life and career in Boston, New York, Paris, New England, and East Hampton as well as his travels are covered in fresh and insightful chapters. Essays on more specific subjects focus on Hassam's pride in his ancestry; his interest in architecture, gardens and allegorical themes; his accomplishments as a watercolourist and printmaker; his frames; the marketing of his art; and the contemporary critical response to it. The book, which also contains a chronology of Hassam's career and a comprehensive exhibition chronology, accompanies the first major museum retrospective of Hassam's works since 1972. Childe Hassam, American Impressionist examines this great artist's work in the context of his credo that "the man who will go down to posterity is the man who paints his own time and the scenes of everyday life around him".
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From Publishers Weekly
Hassam's 50-year career is dutifully presented in this expansive catalogue. Direct influences on American Impressionist Hassam (1859–1935) include Dutch and British masters (Hassam disavowed Monet's influence, though Hassam "liberated his brushwork" in Paris), influences that mirror the painter's unfailing enthusiasm for his native country and its (and his) Anglo-Saxon forebears. Included among the 374 illustrations (244 in full color) are depictions of the urban environments Hassam cherished (Boston, New York City and Paris) as well as rose-colored, elegant views of the more rugged East Hampton and Maine. "It has been my life-long aim to retain the natural beauty and dignity of any fine old American community," Hassam wrote. His greatest achievement remains his mighty (and now iconic) flag series, and depictions of Fifth Avenue in its festooned post-WWI patriotism. The collection also includes an essay on Hassam's framing and marketing techniques, his ventures into other mediums, a checklist of works included in the exhibition and a chronology of his life, all of which contribute to a further contextualization, scholarly and popular, of this American Impressionist.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Hassam (1859-1935) was the most zestful of the American impressionists, and Weinberg, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, along with her expert contributors, covers every facet of Hassam's life and work in this substantial, gorgeously illustrated volume. Although Hassam relished the fact that his name sounded Arabian, he was solidly Anglo-Saxon, and although he studied in Paris and traveled in Europe, as every serious painter of his generation did, he was all-American and deliberately painted upbeat scenes of the cushy lives of the privileged and fashionable. So lovely and vital are the watercolors, oils, and etchings created by this purveyor of "cheerful elitism and escapism," the astonishingly prolific Hassam became resoundingly successful, although he did develop a drinking problem and a vehement hatred of modern art. But there is no evidence of these dark forces in his shimmering paintings of Boston boulevards, the chic New York neighborhoods favored by Edith Wharton, and idyllic New England as Hassam's broad brushstrokes, "dramatic perspective," and vibrant colors cohere into works of unabashedly lush and timeless beauty. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An essential addition to American Impressionist literature,
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This review is from: Childe Hassam, American Impressionist (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series) (Hardcover)
My feelings about this book mirror the feelings I had when I attended the exhibition this catalogue is drawn from. I had the pleasure of seeing the Childe Hassam retrospective in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004; it was one of the few times that I have seen total strangers turn to one another at an exhibition this size and speak with each other about their mutual amazement for the artist's technique. I knew a bit about Impressionism, and a bit about American artists such as Whistler and Cassatt who were influenced by Impressionism. But I didn't know anything about Hassam. Who was this wonderful artist and why didn't my college courses in modern art teach me about him?
I wanted to learn as much as I could, and this book provided me with the answers to both questions. Childe Hassam was the essential link between the Impressionism of Paris and later American descendants of the genre. He was a proud and gifted man who, like most giants, contained giant-sized paradoxes. He steadfastly denied the influence of Monet while clearly celebrating that influence in his cityscapes. He championed the spirit of the growing spirit of New York City while denying its increasingly immigrant population. In the end, like so many greats, he was an anachronism and ignored by the younger avant-garde. After reading and rereading this immensively informative book, I had a good idea of both who Hassam was and why modern art scholars have trouble with his standing among his peers. He's a complicated person, but aren't all great artists? The illustrations in this book, as you'd expect, are not only first rate but complete. We are treated not only to full-page accurately colored reproductions but also to many enlarged details of the same paintings. All the paintings from the exhibition along with many that were notare reproduced here,and several paintings by Monet and Degas are included for comparisons. The writing style is largely academic, but I think most of this book would be accessible to anyone who loves to read and isn't easily discouraged by long blocks of text. This isn't an oversized picture book, but an indepth examination of Hassam that places him in the context of the early 20th Century. If you enjoy Impressionism and the roots of modern art, and you have a penchant for learning all you can about some of the relatively forgotten figures from that time, you will not only add this book to your collection but cherish it.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A MEMORABLE IMPRESSIONIST,
This review is from: Childe Hassam, American Impressionist (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series) (Hardcover)
While many books have been published featuring the work of famed American Impressionist Childe Hassam, few offer such stunning illustrations and none trace so completely the many years Hassam spent marketing his art. He lived the statement he made in 1892: "I believe the man who will go down to posterity is the man who paints his own time and the scenes of every-day life around him." Paint those scenes he did - who is not moved by his depictions of the red, white and blue flags and banners flying from the tallest buildings in New York City at the onset of World War I? It's clear that Hassam loved New York and painted it in all its many faces - summer, autumn, winter and spring. The artist also spent a great deal of time in New England where he captured quaint villages and fabled East Hampton interiors. Adept at both urban and rural scenes, Hassam studied in Paris where, it's believed, he first became acquainted with the eye catching French Impressionism. He brought much of what he had learned to America, where he would become one of the most prolific practitioners of American Impressionism. H. Barbara Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, has done a superb job of selecting the 374 illustrations included in this luxe volume as well as penning engaging and informative accompanying texts. "Childe Hassam: American Impressionist" will be treasured by not only art aficionados but by Americans as well as they come to realize the enormous contribution Hassam made to bolstering pride in our country. - Gail Cooke
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Childe Hassam American Impressionist,
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This review is from: Childe Hassam, American Impressionist (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series) (Hardcover)
This book is an excellent read and provides ample pictures for immense enjoyment. Through Amazon I was able to purchase the book for nearly half the price compared to anywhere else. Thanks Amazon!
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