Childe Hassam

The premier American Impressionist painter of New York City

By Alexandra A. Jopp

Childe Hassam, often referred to as the “American Monet,” is one of the most admired American Impressionists, famous for his New York City street scenes, coastal views, and rural landscapes of New England.

I. Biography

Frederick Childe Hassam, America’s leading Impressionist, established an impressive oeuvre with many mediums including watercolors, pastels, drawings and prints. Early in his career, Hassam established a connection with Claude Monet, but this association would become a frustration to him as he disdained comparisons to the great Frenchman, even rejected the label of Impressionist for himself. He is also known for two other styles: he became an important illustrator during the “golden age” of American illustration in the 1880s and 1890s, and he adopted many of the techniques of nineteenth-century British landscape painting, a result, in part, of his travels to England in the 1880s.

Hassam’s oils, watercolors and pastels display an intuitive sense of light and color. His works reflect knowledge of both French and English art theory, evident in his enlightened coastal and rural landscapes of New England. Hassam adopted a modern position by choosing cities as his primary subject, though today, he is also revered for the landscapes he painted during summer vacations on Appledore Island, Maine.

Hassam was born on Oct. 17, 1859, in Dorchester, Mass., to middle class parents Rosa Delia Hathorne and Frederick Fitch Hassam. From early in his life, Hassam preferred to be known by his middle name, and he signed his works “F. Childe Hassam.” Young Hassam was educated at Dorchester’s Meeting House Hill School and Dorchester High School, where he studied French, German, Latin and Greek while playing several sports. After an 1872 fire destroyed Hassam’s father’s cutlery business, he quit high school so he could work to help the family. In 1876, he started a job in the accounting department of Boston publishing house Little, Brown and Company, but he soon realized that numbers were not his strength and decided to devote his life to art.

Hassam’s art career began with training as a wood engraver and draftsman. Simultaneously, he worked as a free-lance illustrator, namely of stories for children. He also attended art classes at the Lowell Institute and the Boston Art Club during this time. Though he worked in oils and watercolor; he quickly developed a preference for the latter.

In 1883, Hassam made his first trip to Europe, visiting Great Britain, France; The Netherlands; Switzerland; Italy and Spain. While on the continent, he absorbed the painterly brushstrokes and pure colors of the Impressionists. In Paris, under their influence, his palette brightened and he discovered a love for depicting city subjects that he retained into the final years of his long and prolific career.

In 1884, Hassam married Kathleen Maude Doan, who was known as Maud. (The marriage was childless.) In the early 1880s, the couple lived in Boston, where the artist became one of a small number of American artists to paint watercolors of urban street scenes. In 1886, looking to further develop his art and style, he took Maud to Paris. They lived there for three years while Hassam attended classes at the Académie Julian. Paris, with its charm and elegance, the true “City of Light,” was captured in such Hassam paintings as Tuileries Gardens (1897) Pont Royal, Paris (1897) and Une Averse, Rue Bonaparte (1887).

After returning from Paris in 1889, the couple moved to New York City, where they would live for the next three decades. Soon after his arrival, Hassam helped to found the New York Watercolor Club and was elected its first president. From 1890 to 1894, he focused on flower painting. It was also during this period that he completed what are probably his best known illustrations – pictures for An Island Garden by his friend Celia Thaxter, a New England poet. In the late-19th and early-20th century, he painted images from Maine’s Appledore Island, finding that “the rocks and the sea are the few things that do not change and they are wonderfully beautiful.”_[1] From 1916 to 1919, he created his famous images of flags of the United States and its allies that at least one scholar has characterized as Hassam’s contribution to the war effort. He received what he considered to be the greatest honor of his career in 1920 when he was elected to the Academy of Arts and Letters, an organization to which he left several hundred artworks after his death in 1935.

As his career developed, Hassam became progressively more insistent on English dominance in art. Though he had made a reputation as an Impressionist, he never considered himself to be an Impressionist and, in fact, claimed that he had learned little from French styles. His approach, he said, was built upon English watercolor traditions.

A painter of light and beauty, Hassam is one of the premier and most prolific American artists. He produced “thirty or forty paintings in the time that other artists labored to complete six or seven, so he had always a supply of fresh works for the many exhibits around the country and abroad, even when his canvases sold briskly to collectors.”_[2] His Impressionism depended on something more than painterly pursuit of pleasure or taste for light and color. He has been called “an American Sisley,” and “an American Monet” for his bright tones, dynamic brushwork and light-filled city subjects. The art of Hassam has a distinct aesthetic and cultural aspect, visible in its union of visual reality and American freedom.

II. Chronology

• 1859 Born on Oct. 17 in Dorchester, Mass.
• 1876 Apprenticed as a wood engraver in Boston; worked as an illustrator for magazines and book publishers
• 1877-78 Attended evening classes at the Boston Art Club. Temporarily enrolled in Lowell Institute; studied under Dr. William Rimmer
• 1879-81 Set up studio as a free-lance illustrator, particularly of stories for children
• 1879 Studied painting with I.M. Gaugengigl in Boston
• 1882 First one-man exhibition, “Water Colors by Fred C. Hassam,” held at the Williams and Everett Gallery, Boston.
• 1883 First trip to Europe; visited Great Britain, France, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy and Spain
• 1884 Married Kathleen Maude Doan on Feb. 1
• 1884 Began painting urban street scenes, one of a small number of American artists to do so at the time
• 1886 Left with Maud for his second trip to Europe; settled in Paris, where he studied drawing at the Académie Julian with Gustav Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre
• 1886 Painted Summer Evening
• 1887 Exhibited at the Paris Salon as Childe Hassam; began to work in Impressionist style
• 1888 Exhibited at the Paris Salon and at the third International Art Exhibition, Munich
• 1889 Exhibited at Exposition Universelle, Paris, where he was awarded a bronze medal; exhibited at Galerie Georges Petite, Paris; spent half of the summer in England
• 1889 Sailed to New York in October; assisted in founding of New York Watercolor Club and elected its first president.
• 1889-90 Painted Winter in Union Square
• 1890 Joined Pastel Society, New York
• 1890 Painted Celia Thaxter’s Garden, Isles of Shoals, Maine
• 1891 Exhibited four watercolors at Art Institute of Chicago
• 1892 Won silver medal at the sixth International Art Exhibition, Munich; won Gold Medal for Watercolor at 2nd Annual Exhibition of Water Colors and Pastels, Philadelphia
• 1893 Took a new studio in the Rembrandt Studio building in New York; exhibited oils and watercolors at World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago; awarded several prizes
• 1894 Houghton Mifflin and Co. published Celia Thaxter’s An Island Garden, illustrated by Hassam; the book is a success.
• 1895 Awarded a Webb Prize, 17th Annual Exhibition, Society of American Artists, National Academy of Design
• 1896 Auction of 205 of his oils, watercolors and pastels held at the American Art Galleries, New York. In December, left for Europe with Maud, settling in Naples, Italy
• 1897 Founded Ten American Painters Group with J.H. Twachtman and J. A. Weir; elected to membership in Lotos Club, New York
• 1898 Won silver medal at the 3rd Annual Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; first exhibition of the Ten American Painters held at Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York, followed by one at St. Botolph Club; Hassam included in Salon de la Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris
• 1898 Taught at Art Students League, New York
• 1899 Awarded Temple Gold Medal, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 68th Annual Exhibition
• 1899 Three Cities by Childe Hassam published with illustrations of 49 works in various media depicting New York, London and Paris
• 1900 Awarded silver medal at Exposition Universelle, Paris.
• 1910 Fourth and last trip to Europe; worked in Paris and Spain
• 1912 Won William A. Clark Prize and gold medal, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and Evans Prize, American Water Color Society, New York
• 1913 Ten works accepted by the famed Armory Show
• 1916-19 Absorbed in the creation of a series of paintings known as the Flag Series; pictures represent definitive development of his Impressionist manner
• 1917 Painted Allies Day, May 1917
• 1917 Began to work in lithography
• 1920 Elected to American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York; received Gold Medal of Honor for lifetime achievement from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia
• 1931 Awarded Pennell Memorial Gold Medal for Etching, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
• 1933 Publication of Complete Etched Work of Childe Hassam by Leonard Clayton Gallery, New York
• 1935 Died in Willow Bend, N.Y., on Aug. 27; entire art collection bequeathed to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York.

III. Collections

• Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Mass.
• Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
• Arizona State University Art Museum
• Art Institute of Chicago
• Ball State Museum of Art, Indiana
• Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Maine
• Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University
• Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York City
• Butler Institute of American Art, Ohio
• Canajoharie Library and Art Gallery
• Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Cedarhurst Center For The Arts, Mt. Vernon, Illinois
• Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia
• Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio
• Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio
• Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
• Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, Florida
• Crocker Art Museum, California
• Cummer Museum of Art, Jacksonville, Florida
• Currier Gallery of Art, New Hampshire
• Dallas Museum of Art, Texas
• Dayton Art Institute, Ohio
• Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan
• Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine
• Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut
• Frye Art Museum, Seattle
• Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina
• Harvard University Art Museums, Massachusetts
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
• Hunter Museum of American Art, Tennessee
• Hyde Collection Art Museum, Glens Falls, New York
• Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana
• Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
• Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri
• Maier Museum of Art at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, Virginia
• Maryland State Archives
• Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, New York
• Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
• Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota
• Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey
• Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France
• Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
• Museum of the City of New York
• National Academy of Design, New York City
• National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
• Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Missouri
• New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut
• New-York Historical Society
• Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida
• Orlando Museum of Art, Florida
• Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York
• Portland Museum of Art, Maine
• Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey
• Richmond Art Museum, Indiana
• Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College, California
• San Diego Museum of Art, California
• Sheldon Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska
• Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago
• Smith College Museum of Art, Massachusetts
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
• Smithsonian Institution Art Inventories
• Southern Alleghenies Museum, Loretto, Pennsylvania
• Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas
• Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago
• The Newark Museum, New Jersey
• The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.
• Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain
• Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota, Duluth
• University of Kentucky Art Museum
• Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Connecticut
• Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania
• Wetmore Print Collection at Connecticut College
• Wichita Art Museum, Kansas
• Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts

IV. Exhibitions

• 1882-92, 1896 Boston Art Club
• 1883, 85, 87, 89, 96 American Art Galleries
• 1883, 91 Brooklyn Art Association
• 1883-89, 91, 92, 1912, 1919 American Water Color Society
• 1883-1935 National Academy of Design
• 1884, 1888-92, 99, 1906, 1910, 1919-20, 1931-35 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
• 1884 Williams and Everett Gallery, Boston
• 1885, 1891 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• 1885, 86 Boston Water-Color Society
• 1886 American Art Association
• 1886, 1890-92, Society of American Artist
• 1886 The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• 1886-90 Inter-State Industrial Exposition of Chicago
• 1888-89 Paris Salon, France
• 1888, 1892 Internationalem Kunst-Ausstellung, Munich
• 1889, 1900 Exposition Universelle
• 1889-92, 96, 1913 The Art Institute of Chicago
• 1889, 91 Doll and Richards Gallery, Boston
• 1890 Union League Club, New York
• 1890 Hermann Wunderlich Gallery
• 1890 Paris Salon
• 1890, 91, 92 Rochester Art Club
• 1890, 91, 92 Art Club of Philadelphia
• 1890, 91 New York Water Color Club
• 1890 Fellowcraft Club
• 1890 Noyess, Cobb, and Co., Boston
• 1891, 92 Brooklyn Art Club
• 1891 Hamilton Place, Boston
• 1891 Gallerie Durand-Ruel, Paris
• 1891 St. Louis Exposition and Music Hall Association
• 1891, 92 Union League Club, New York
• 1891 Blakeslee Galleries, Brooklyn Eagle
• 1892 Portland Art Association, Oregon
• 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago
• 1893, 1914 Macbeth Gallery, New York
• 1895 Cleveland Art Association
• 1895 Society of American Artists, New York (Webb prize)
• 1896, 1904, 1910 Carnegie Art Galleries, Pittsburgh
• 1898, 1903, 1918 Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York
• 1901 Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo
• 1903 Salon of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris
• 1906 Galleries of the American Fine Arts Society
• 1906 Worcester Art Museum
• 1908-1910 Cincinnati Art Museum
• 1909, 1914-16 Montross Gallery, New York
• 1910, 1910-12, 1919 The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.,
• 1913 Association of American Painters and Sculptors
• 1914 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco
• 1914 Water Color Club
• 1927 American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 1929 Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo
• 1932-33 Leonard Clayton Gallery, New York
• 1933 Adam Clayton Gallery, New York

V. Memberships

• American Academy of Arts and Letters
• American Watercolor Society
• Boston Art Club
• Coffee House
• Lotos Club
• Louisville Art League
• Munich Secession
• National Institute of Arts and Letters
• National Academy of Design
• New York Water Color Club
• Paint and Clay Club, Boston
• Painter-Gravers of America
• Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
• Players Club
• Salmagundi Club
• Society of American Artists
• Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris
• Ten American Painters
• Union Club

• VI. Notes

• 1: David Park Curry, Childe Hassam: An Island Garden Revisited, (New York and London: Denver Art Museum in association with W.W. Norton & Company, 1990), p. 14.
• 2: Elizabeth Broun, “Childe Hassam’s America,” American Art 13, no. 3 (1999): 33.

VII. Suggested Resources

• Adelson, Warren, Jay E. Cantor and William H. Gerdts. Childe Hassam: Impressionist. New York and London: Abbeville Press, 1999.
• Bullock, Margaret E. Childe Hassam: Impressionist in the West. Portland, Ore.: Portland Art Museum, 2005.
• Curry, David Park. Childe Hassam: An Island Garden Revisited. New York and London: Denver Art Museum in association with W.W. Norton & Company, 1990.
• Hoopes, Donelson F. Childe Hassam. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1979.
• Weinberg, H. Barbara. Childe Hassam, American Impressionist. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004.