Childe Hassam 1859 - 1935

Macbeth Galleries, New York
Mr. William J. Johnson, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, 1910 (acquired from the above and sold: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, December 10-14, 1946, lot 874, illustrated)
Ferargil Galleries, New York (acquired from the above sale)
Private Collection, Massachusetts (sold: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, May 8, 1957, lot 106, illustrated)
Bernard Danenberg Galleries, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1971

Donald Kent Johnston, "Art in Uniontown," The American Magazine of Art, vol. XVI, September 1925, p. 464

Overall good condition. Strip lined. Under UV: scattered spots in the sky, with a 1 1/2 inch vertical line of inpainting in the center sky, and a few scattered spots in the water, primarily in upper right. Recently cleaned and restored by Simon Parkes.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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.

In 1889 Childe Hassam returned from a three year stay in Paris and settled in New York City. During the summers he retreated to Appledore, one of the remote, rocky islands that make up the Isles of Shoals, located off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. The artist had begun visiting Appledore as early as 1884, and returned frequently for what he called working vacations, until 1916. Though primarily a resort community, Hassam was lured to the island by friend, accomplished poet and renowned gardener, Celia Thaxter, who had a summer home on the island. Her gracious hospitality invariably attracted a large group of painters, writers and musicians, creating an informal summer artist's colony. Much like Thaxter's gardens, which feature prominently in Hassam's oeuvre, the striking, rocky coastline became a subject that fascinated the artist.

Painted in 1909, Rocks at Appledore, Morning, conveys both the timelessness of the Appledore landscape, and the immediacy with which Hassam experienced it. With vigorous, staccato strokes and intensely colored pigments, the artist captures the warmth of a summer morning on the coast of Appledore. The artist and his hostess shared a fascination with the ancient layers of bedrock exposed along the island's shore. Thaxter wrote at length about the topography of Appledore, describing the coastline's appearance as, "Rifts and chasms, and roughly piled gorges, and square quarries of stone, and stairways cut as if by human hands. The trap rock, softer than the granite, is worn away in many places, leaving the bare perpendicular walls fifteen or twenty feet high...In some places, the geologist will tell you, certain deep scratches in the solid rock mean that here the glacier ground its way across the world's earlier ages" (D.P. Curry, Childe Hassam: An Island Garden Revisited, 1990, p. 156).