Childe Hassam

1859 - 1935

Childe Hassam, a Dorchester native, was one of the first Impressionists to paint in Gloucester, and he did so for over twenty-nine years, first in the early 1880s with his colleague and friend Ross Sterling Turner (1847–1915). Hassam went to Europe to study in the summer of 1883, and returned to Boston where he opened a studio. His first major oil paintings, Boston scenes, were executed then. In 1886, he attended the Académie Julian in Paris, stayed three years and then settled in New York City in 1889. He had adopted an Impressionist style and bright color in Europe, and back in the States, wanted to hone his technique with other artists and writers. He did so on Appledore Island, the summer home of poet, ex-student and collector Celia Thaxter, whose beautiful gardens Hassam painted.

By the time Hassam returned to Gloucester in 1890, his Impressionist style was more American than French. The American version was comparatively restrained and controlled, domesticated to American conservatism, and concerned with underlying structure and realism. It could be stunning, but unlike French Impressionism, was never revolutionary or avant-garde. His style did, however, bring fresh ideas to this country and its artists. Hassam was one of the two oldest artists to participate in New York City’s 1913 Armory Show, a groundbreaking exhibition that introduced European Modernism to America. Hassam showed six Impressionist pieces, but Impressionism was, by this point, a mainstream, even historical, style. Ironically, Hassam disdained the new European movements, among them Cubism and Futurism, and commented about the arts, “...this is the age of quacks, and quackery, and New York City is their objective point.”

Hassam made prints as well as paintings in Gloucester. Both his etchings and his lithographs are clean and precise, showing mastery and confidence with these unforgiving mediums. Childe Hassam and other artists around the turn of the 20th century cemented Cape Ann’s reputation as a significant place for aesthetic inquiry. Hassam’s portrayals of Gloucester became so popular that artist Ernest Haskell wrote:

Before I had seen Hassam’s pictures, [Gloucester] seemed like a fishy little city, now as I pass through it I feel Hassam. The schooners beating in and out, the wharves, the sea, the sky, these belong to Hassam.