Maurice B. Prendergast 1858-1924

Kraushaar Galleries, New York
Mrs. Cornelius J. Sullivan, New York, 1926 [sold: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, December 6-7, 1939, lot 35 (as The Fountain)]
Walker Galleries, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Mrs. Walter Fletcher, 1962
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York
Acquired from the above, 1962

New York, Kraushaar Galleries, Catalogue of a Memorial Exhibition of Paintings and Watercolors by Maurice Prendergast, February-March 1925
Cleveland, Ohio, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Maurice Prendergast Memorial Exhibition, January-February 1926, no. 48
New York, Kraushaar Galleries, Watercolor Exhibition, May 1931, no. 30 (as The Fountain, Boston)
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Maurice Prendergast Memorial Exhibition, February-March 1934, no. 26
New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Selections from the Collection of Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Vol. IV, 1962, no. 36, p. 25, illustrated in color (as The Fountain-Gramercy Park) 
New York, IBM Gallery, Realism: An American Heritage, January-February 1963, no. 43
Brooklyn, New York, The Brooklyn Museum; Andover, Massachusetts, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, American Painting: Selections from the Collection of Daniel and Rita Fraad, June-November 1964, no. 36, p. 45, illustrated
New York, Pembroke College Club of New York, Amel Gallery, A Contemporary Art Exhibit from the Private Collections of Brown and Pembroke Alumni and Friends of the University, April 1965 
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 200 Years of Watercolor Painting in America: An Exhibition Commemorating the Centennial of the American Watercolor Society, December 1966-January 1967, no. 134, p. 24
Fort Worth, Texas, Amon Carter Museum, American Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings from the Collection of Rita and Daniel Fraad, May-July 1985, no. 27, p. 58, illustrated in color p. 59
New York, Coe Kerr Gallery, The Remembered Image: Prendergast Watercolors 1896-1906, October-December 1986, no. 32, illustrated in color

William Mathewson Milliken, "Maurice Prendergast, American Artist," The Arts, April 1926, p. 181, illustrated p. 182
Margaret Breuning, Maurice Prendergast, New York, 1931, p. 10
"Paintings and Prints Sold at Auction," American Art Annual, July 1941, p. 684 
Hedley Howell Rhys, "Maurice Prendergast: The Sources and Development of His Style," Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1952, p. 176
Hedley Howell Rhys, Maurice Prendergast 1859-1924, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1960, p. 95
Peter A. Wick, Maurice Prendergast 1859-1924, Boston, Massachusetts,1960, p. 95
Hilton Kramer, "In the Museums," Art in America, April 1964, p. 39, illustrated
Carol Clark, Nancy Mowll Mathews, Gwendolyn Owens, Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1990, no. 769, p., 405 illustrated, also illustrated in color, pl. 29
Sue Welsh Reed, Carol Troyen, Awash in Color: Homer, Sargent, and the Great American Watercolor, Boston, Massachusetts, 1993, p. 189, illustrated fig. 3

The Fountain, Boston typifies Prendergast’s fully realized and mature watercolor style, which reached its peak in richness of color and complexity of design just before and after the turn of the century.  Throughout the 1890s, Prendergast had devoted himself primarily to watercolor and taken as his subjects the picturesque crowds that he found at the summer resorts, public beaches and parks in and around Boston.  These groups of well-dressed figures engaged in leisurely activities ideally suited the artist's increasingly modern vision, as he transformed crowds into dynamic, densely patterned compositions of jewel-like color.

In November 1899, after spending sixteen months in Italy, Prendergast returned to America and settled in Winchester, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston.  Nancy Mowll Matthews observes, “Prendergast’s depictions of architectural monuments in Venice seem to have instilled in at least one patron the idea that he could do the same kind of work in Boston, and he was soon commissioned to paint the old ‘Bartol’ church.  He did a series of views of the building itself (which was being used temporarily as a library) as well as the fountain and grounds.  Of all the city views he was to do on American soil, these came closest to the architectural masterpieces of the Venice series” (Maurice Prendergast, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1990, p.18).

The Fountain, Boston and Courtyard, West End Library, Boston (figure 1) both depict the view looking away from the church and across the courtyard.  Three other watercolors in the series—Courtyard, West End Library, Boston (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), West Church, Boston (Private Collection) and West Church, Boston (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)—focus on the church more directly.  Richard J. Wattenmaker remarks about this series, “West Church, Boston, c. 1900-1901, was among at least six closely related variants.  The autumn scene includes many of Prendergast’s familiar motifs: the screen-like cast-iron fence, the vertical framework of tree trunks and figures, especially children, set on the brick sidewalk in a way identical to the contemporaneous monotypes of London and Boston” (Maurice Prendergast, New York, 1994, p. 61).

In The Fountain, Boston, Prendergast has worked carefully and deliberately, filling the sheet with layers of pigment, sometimes blotting the wet paper to create a transparent field of color such as the pool of water in the fountain, or adding additional strokes of paint to suggest the richness of the figures’ clothing.  Prendergast frequently made changes and reworked his compositions, and the artist's pentimenti are visible in the immediate foreground, where Prendergast has painted out two figures. A similar alteration appears in Courtyard, West End Library, Boston (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) , where the bottom inch of the sheet has been folded under, in an effort to shorten the cobblestone street.  Carol Troyen writes of this series, "Though clearly presenting a slice of modern urban life, the courtyard of the West End Library, circumscribed by the brick facades and the decorative iron fence, was a controlled space and served Prendergast like a stage set: his colorfully costumed players move across our field of vision generating counless little dramatic incidents" (Awash in Color: Homer, Sargent and the Great American Watercolor, Boston, Massachusetts, 1993, p. 189).