Childe Hassam: patterns of appreciation

Magazine Antiques, July, 2004 by H. Barbara Weinberg

(40) Richard J. Boyle, American Impressionism (New York Graphic Society, Boston, 1974).

(41) A brief historiography of American impressionism appears in William H. Gerdts, American Impressionism (Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, 1980), pp. 9-10. The Henry's exhibition inaugurated American impressionist studies in the 1980s, yielding the still indispensable William H. Gerdts, American Impressionism (Abbeville Press, New York, 1984) and many publications by other authors.

(42) See Important Exhibition of Early and Recent Works by Childe Hassam of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (Milch Galleries, New York, December 3-24, 1928), No. 20. The painting, which Hassam had shown often since 1894, did not find a buyer during his lifetime and was bequeathed to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which sold it to Milch Galleries. Subsequent owners were John Fox in Boston until 1960, and then three successive private collectors, including the current owner. See Theodore E. Stebbins Jr., Carol Troyen, and Trevor J. Fairbrother, A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760-1910 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1983), p. 322. The painting appeared at Sotheby's, New York, May 27, 1993, Lot 21. The price cited above included the buyer's premium. The relative value of money was calculated by referring to the Web site noted in n. 11.

(43) Fort, The Flag Paintings, p. 112.

(44) Flags, Afternoon on the Avenue, 1917 was sold at Christie's, New York, May 21, 1998, Lot 20, for $7,922,500, which includes the buyer's premium.

H. BARBARA WEINBERG is the Alice Pratt Brown curator of American paintings and sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.