Frederick Childe Hassam

1859 - 1935 • American • Painter • Impressionist

"His most memorable subject was the American flag . ... Monet, Pissarro, and Manet had all painted Parisian streets decked with banners. ... Hassam's purpose was different. He wanted his flags to be entirely legible as flags, because he was constructing images of American patriotism and of Allied cooperation: he wanted to symbolize the good guys' power to win." - Robert Hughes, 1997

Hassam's career began as an illustrator. He made a tour of Europe in 18 8 3, and before going back to study in Paris (1886-89), he returned home to Massachusetts, where he painted Rainy Day in Boston (1885). In this well-known picture Hassam captures the mood, colors, and slick pavements-the look of a vital city. However, it was not the fashionable Back Bay residential neighborhood, as many commentators believe; it was the middle-class South End, where Hassam himself lived. The tonal qualities in Hassam's work changed after his studies in Paris, as did his address. He moved to New York City and became the consummate watcher and recorder of its daily, uptown life. Under the influence of French IMPRESSIONISM, his colors were brighter, his brushstroke more broken, with the one-stroke dexterity Impressionists used to render form. Yet looking closely at Hassam's canvases, one still sees forms that are more congealed than those of his French counterparts, something that holds true for most AMERICAN IMPRESSIONISTS. Not until he was nearly 60 did Hassam begin to paint what the critic Hughes, in the quotation above, describes as his "most memorable subject": the American flag. Its message, as Hughes interprets it, was "Buy Liberty Bonds."