Author: Weinberg, H. Barbara

Brand: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Binding: Hardcover

Number Of Pages: 440

Release Date: 11-05-2004

Details: Product Description "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," declared Childe Hassam in 1892. It was as a pioneer of American Impressionism and perhaps its most prolific and successful practitioner that Hassam (1859-1935) realized this credo. In so doing, he provided an account of our national life during a dynamic period. At the same time he helped to create a wave of enthusiasm for American Impressionism that he rode to fame and fortune. 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. 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 From the Publisher This book is the catalogue for an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (June 7 to September 12, 2004). Published in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art. About the Author H. Barbara Weinberg is the Alice Pratt Brown Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Package Dimensions: 12.0 x 9.3 x 1.1 inches

Languages: English