CHILDE HASSAM, Autumn

Milch Galleries, New York
John Fox Collection, Boston, Massachusetts
Babcock Galleries, New York, 1962 (acquired from the above)
Acquired by the present owners from the above, 1994

After he returned from Europe in 1889, Hassam spent many summer months traveling throughout New England. Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, he was proud of his New England family roots and yearned for the landscape he had known in his youth.  “At the Shoals, as in Cos Cob, Old Lyme, and Gloucester, Hassam joined enclaves of artists who energized his work and enriched his leisure. Hassam sought subject matter in New England…he captured on his canvases picturesque villages, white-columned churches, old-fashioned gardens, demure women and rugged seacoasts. Such themes represented qualities Hassam cherished and struck a chord with potential collectors who discerned in them assurance of enduring values” (Barbara Weinberg, Childe Hassam: American Impressionist, New York, p.119).

One such collector was John Fox, the New England financier who during the 1940s had assembled the foremost collection of Hassam paintings including Autumn.  In a much publicized scandal, Fox lost his fortune and in the early 1950s was forced to sell his prized Hassam collection. Many of the paintings were sold in the auction Paintings and Watercolors by Childe Hassam at Parke-Bernet Galleries in 1957, and others were bought by Babcock Galleries in the early 1960s. The one painting Fox could not part with was Autumn and ultimately it was the last painting in the John Fox collection to be sold.

Autumn is a tribute to the vibrant New England fall landscape at its peak. It is a thoroughly impressionist scene of trees rendered in hues of gold, green, orange and red. A hunter stands alone with his gun at his side by a pond in the foreground of the composition; a dense stand of tall trees obscures the quaint houses of a classic New England village beyond.