CHILDE HASSAM | Bouquet of Oaks

Private collection, New York
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York
Private collection, 1962 (acquired from the above)
By descent to the present owner

The canvas is wax lined and there is frame abrasion at edges. There is fine surface cracking in the areas of thicker impasto. Under UV: there are two thin lines of inpainting in the sky in upper left quadrant. Some other pigments fluoresce but appear to be original.
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Painted in 1907, Bouquet of Oaks elegantly illustrates Childe Hassam’s technique at the turn-of-the-century in which he favored impressionistic brushstrokes of subtle tonal variations over perspective and line. As Jay Cantor notes, the artist’s “increasing attention to surface qualities and expressive content became the vehicle for Hassam’s transition from nineteenth- to twentieth-century modernism, and it is evident in both the style and choice of subjects that he made after the turn of the century” (“Hassam’s Twentieth Century Work,” Childe Hassam, Impressionist, New York, 1999, p. 78).   By this time, Hassam was growing increasingly tired of the bustling pace of the city, even stating “I don’t know that I wish a very large dose of New York for any of my friends” (Ulrich Hiesinger, Childe Hassam, New York, 1994,  p. 131).  Instead, he spent much of the year traveling between the New England artistic communities  of Gloucester, Isle of Shoals, New London and Old Lyme. These locales lent themselves to Hassam’s increased sensitivity to the effects of light and changes in atmosphere. Many of his paintings from this period are landscapes set in and around New England, including Bouquet of Oaks which depicts the Connecticut countryside

This work will be included in Stuart P. Feld's and Kathleen M. Burnside's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.