Maurice Brazil Prendergast 1858 - 1924

Charles Prendergast, 1924 (the artist's brother)
Mrs. Eugenie Prendergast (his wife)
Private Collection, Westport, Connecticut, 1946 (acquired from the above)
By descent in the family to the present owner

Carol Clark, Nancy Mowll Mathews and Gwendolyn Owens, Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1990, no. 1325, p. 531, illustrated p. 530 (as French Beach Scene)

Very good condition. Not laid down. Small 3/4 inch repaired tear at bottom right edge behind the matte (only visible out of frame). Artist's pin holes at left and right corners. Pencil drawing and several inscriptions (probably framer's notes) on the reverse.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Following Prendergast's final trip to Paris in 1914, he and his brother Charles moved to New York, spending the summers traveling to various coastal towns around New England. Always with a sketchbook, Prendergast captured scenes of leisure activity along the coast with his characteristic and unique style, which he developed during his years spent in Europe studying works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Mattise and Georges Seurat. In View Along New England Coast, the figures along the shore are painted with bright strokes of color to suggest form and movement.

Nancy Mowll Mathews notes, "The gradual development of Prendergast's late style, which was essentially 'synthetic,' may be a belated response to his earliest experiences in Paris as a student in the early 1890s, when both Symbolism and Pointillism were current. The overriding formal, compositional, and decorative character of the style is rooted in Post-Impressionism, but particular elements have specific sources. For instance, it is difficult to conceive of Prendergast's touche technique, which surfaces in many different guises from the early small dots and balloon spots to the later daubs and dashes, without some conscious reference to Seurat, Signac, and Pointillism. These technical modes became the basis for what is generally referred to as his 'mosaic' or 'tapestry' style" (Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1990, pp. 21-22).