Childe Hassam Paintings

In the Garden (Celia Thaxter in Her Garden)

1892http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10073oil on canvas22 1/4 x 18 in. (56.5 x 45.7 cm.)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyThe writer Celia Thaxter stands in the midst of her luxuriant flower garden on Appledore, one of the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of New Hampshire. Childe Hassam belonged to the circle of artists and writers who gathered at her home, and some of his most successful paintings and watercolors depict her home and garden.Thaxter's Garden1892http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10067watercolor on papersheet: 19 3/4 x 14 1/8 in. (50.2 x 35.8 cm)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyCelia Thaxter's home on Appledore, one of the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire, was celebrated for its luxuriant flower garden, full of brilliant color and wild beauty. Childe Hassam belonged to a circle of artists and writers who gathered at the informal salon she hosted during summers on the island. A poet and journalist, Thaxter published An Island Garden, for which Hassam drew illustrations.

Lillie (Lillie Langtry)
ca. 1898
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10076
watercolor and gouache on paperboard

sheet: 24 1/4 x 19 3/4 in. (61.7 x 50.2 cm)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyLillie Langtry was an English actress, famous as one of the country's most beautiful women. Her American tour, spanning five consecutive years, was a grand success, with a town in Texas being named in her honor by Justice of the Peace Roy Bean. In 1898, during this tour, Lillie posed for Childe Hassam in his Fifth Avenue studio. Hassam recalled "having been introduced to her by Stanford White, the great friend of not only all the painters, but of all the good-looking women."Ponte Santa Trinità1897http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10083oil on canvas22 1/2 x 33 5/8 in. (57.0 x 85.3 cm.)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyPainted during Childe Hassam's trip to England, France, and Italy in 1897, this work features one of the seven bridges that cross the Arno River in Florence. Hassam compared his city scenes to portraiture, striving to capture “not only the superficial resemblance, but the inner self. The spirit…the soul of a city.”

Improvisation1899http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10072oil on canvas30 x 33 7/8 in. (76.3 x 86.2 cm.)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyHassam's portrait of a friend glows with summertime light and luscious impressionist surfaces. The woman plays the piano for an audience of flowers, their individual vases arranged in artful informality, like her leisurely improvisation at the keyboard. She also shares this private moment with the colonial portrait of an ancestor at the harp, Hassam's subtle suggestion of a duet between past and present.

Pomona1900
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10082
oil on canvas

37 1/8 x 25 1/4 in. (94.3 x 64.2 cm)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyThis painting shows Pomona, the Roman goddess of gardens and orchards. Childe Hassam, like many artists of the early twentieth century, worried about the effects of working-class immigrants on American society, and the figure of Pomona symbolized his belief that people had to nurture their culture, as they would a garden, to preserve it for future generations. He even described the "radiant" sky in his paintings---a kind of benediction from heaven---as a uniquely American characteristic that, like all of the nation's gifts, helped to foster its culture and pride.Up the River, Late Afternoon, October1906http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10090pastel on papersight 17 3/4 x 21 3/4 in. (45.1 x 55.2 cm)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyThe specific date and time of day that Hassam included in his title suggest that he wished to convey how the scene looked in a particular light. He was less specific about the location, which was most likely a view from the west side of the Lieutenant River, looking northeast toward the picturesque village of Old Lyme, Connecticut. Pastel allowed him to capture the fleeing effects of light and subtleties of color spontaneously. The patches of tan paper that peek through the strokes of pastel enhance the sense of warm afternoon sunlight.

Spring, Navesink Highlands

1908http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10088oil on canvas25 x 30 1/8 in. (63.6 x 76.6 cm)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of William T. EvansChilde Hassam lived in New York, but he also spent a good deal of time away from the chaos of urban life, painting landscapes and quaint villages in New England. (Pyne, Art and the Higher Life, 1999) In this painting of New Jersey's Navesink Highlands, he used quick brushstrokes to capture the effect of a cool spring breeze in the flickering leaves and ripples on the water. After he had chosen a frame for the piece he wrote to his patron William T. Evans that "I am glad to say it looks as fine as anything anywhere in the world."Appledore No. 21912 http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10063watercolor on papersight 14 x 19 3/4 in. (35.6 x 50.2 cm)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyThe rocky ledges of Appledore Island fascinated Childe Hassam during the summers he spent on the island a few miles off the coast of New Hampshire. Hassam liked to escape to the island's rocky shores to paint nature in its wild state, unchanged by human intervention.

The South Ledges, Appledore

1913http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10086oil on canvas34 1/4 x 36 1/8 in. (87.0 x 91.6 cm.)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyHassam spent many summers on Appledore Island off the coast of Maine. Every year, he and a circle of musicians, writers and other artists made an informal colony based at the home of his friend, the poet Celia Thaxter. In Thaxter's gardens and on the rocky beaches, Hassam used the flickering brushwork and brilliant colors he had adopted in France to capture the spangled light of Appledore's brief summer. This painting evokes the leisurely, seasonal rhythms of America's privileged families in the last years before the Great War. A beautifully dressed woman shields her face from the sun; she looks down and away, as if absorbed in the song of a sandpiper, the island bird that inspired Celia Thaxter's most famous children's poem.

Tanagra (The Builders, New York)

1918http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10089oil on canvas58 3/4 x 58 5/8 in. (149.2 x 149.0 cm)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyIn Tanagra (The Builders, New York), Childe Hassam painted an ambivalent image of modern life. At the turn of the twentieth century, the skyscraper symbolized all that was dynamic and powerful in America. Architects praised the new towers as symbols of mankind's reach for the heavens. But as the United States grew in power and prestige, the workers who provided the nation's muscle also seemed to threaten Hassam's orderly and prosperous world. The artist had won fame and fortune picturing New York for the delight of its moneyed class; the art, music, and fine manners surrounding this "blond Aryan girl" provided a buffer against the unruliness of America's immigrant society. If the skyscraper represents worldly ambition, the other vertical elements in the painting—the lilies, the Hellenistic figurine, the panels of a beautiful oriental screen—suggest a different kind of aspiration. But in 1918, the refined life this woman pursued in her elegant environment was already under attack by the reality of war and the clamor of a new century.Hassam wrote a description of this painting: “The blonde Aryan girl holding a Tanagra figurine in her hand against the background of New York building—one in the process of construction and the Chinese lilies springing up from the bulbs is intended to typify and symbolize growth—the growth of a great city, hence the subtitle The Builders, New York.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanagra_figurineMaréchal Niel Roses1919 http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10078oil on canvas26 1/2 x 32 5/8 in. (67.2 x 82.8 cm.)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyChilde Hassam posed a young model at a mahogany table with two vases of Maréchal Niel roses, a flower named for Napoléon III’s secretary of war. Hassam believed that people were shaped by their environments, and here the hybrid roses symbolize America’s culture, which he thought had absorbed the best elements of European and Asian history. The blonde and brunette women similarly evoke different “strains” that had blended to create an American hybrid of womanhood, finer than any the world had seen.The brilliant yellow roses for which this work is titled were named after the secretary of war to Napoleon III. The specific choice of this rose may relate to Hassam's battle for beauty and aestheticism in art as well as life. The elaborate Renaissance-revival frame from the 1920s was added at a later date.
For a complete look at his paintings at the Smithsonian:http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/results/?page=1&num=10&image=0&view=0&name=&title=&keywords=&type=&subject=&number=&id=2112