A couple of days ago, I was flipping through a book I have on the American Impressionist Childe Hassam, Childe Hassam: Impressionist, when the pages opened to a couple of delightful floral pastels. I’m not sure about you, but I only vaguely knew he had done some pastel work. So I thought I’d share a few pieces with you.

Born outside of Boston, Childe Hassam (1859 – 1935) made a successful early life for himself as an illustrator. In 1883, he made a trip to Europe but it wasn’t until he spent three years in France (1886-1889) that he came under the influence of French Impressionism.

“Au Grand Prix de Paris,” was done while in France. Rather than focus on the jockeys and their horses (as Degas did), Hassam instead shows us the spectators at the horse racing event. You can see how much he has absorbed the style of Impressionism. It reminds me both of the work of Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt. This pastel is one of the earliest he created with this medium. Evidently it suited him well as he would become a major pastellist in America after his return there in 1889. His work was exhibited in the fourth and final show of the Society of Painters in Pastel held in New York in 1890.

Hassam became well known for his paintings of the urban life of New York where he lived on his return to America. Here’s a stunningly modern looking pastel of life in the big city. Interestingly, although the setting is a snow blizzard, the dark figure has not been obliterated by the white of the flying snow. Instead, Hassam seemed more interested in the design he could make with the dark figures cut out against the light coloured background.The tan paper and the yellow of the gas lamp give a warmth to what would generally be a very cold scene. This pastel is one of my favourites! You can read more about it on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s website.

Childe Hassam and his wife would summer throughout New England. One of the places they would travel to was Appledore, an island among the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine. Appledore House, run by writer Celia Thaxter, was a summer resort with studios available for the artists who became part of her informal salon. (A side note, apparently it was Thaxter who suggested to Childe around 1883 that he drop his first name Frederick to become known by his Byronic middle name Childe.)

The next two pastels were done at Appledore in the garden Thaxter kept. In the 1890 pastel, with so few lines, Hassam gives us the feeling of poppies blowing in a breeze. Look at how much he uses the colour of the paper as part of his piece.

In the other pastel, we can feel the crispness of a summer day. With so little to indicate it we know we are sitting in a garden of intentional wildness planted close to the sea.

Another pastel done during the summer, not at Appledore but somewhere in New England, is “Summertime.” In parts, there is a single layer of pastel, in other areas, you can see where Hassam added a second layer to create an effect. Examples of this are in the verge on the lower left side where he has combined blue and yellow pastel to create a brighter green, and in the lawn and trees behind where he has added a layer of light blue to push that part of the scene into the background, giving it aerial perspective. You can see this more easily in the details below.

In this painting (much larger than the other two), you can see Hassam’s deftness with pastels. Look at how with a few vigorous strokes he gives us the images of a variety of flowers and a young girl crouching possibly to pick a flower. When you look at the work close-up, it becomes a mishmash of coloured lines; pull back and you have a very clear picture. Remarkable.

Okay, one more. I think the following pastel is stunning in its simplicity and abstract quality. It’s not a small piece either – it’s the same size as “Summertime” above. With vigorous hatching, Hassam gives us an animated yet calm scene of a single star as it appears at twilight or the ‘blue hour’. Again, Hassam has used the colour of the paper to warm this evocative scene.

While researching this post, I came across a wonderful description of this pastel in a short review of Hassam’s work at Blakeslee Gallery written in the American Athenaeum, Vol 3-No4, 15 December 1891. I have included a bit more than the description as it not only lavishes praise on Hassam but also gives a taste of the writing of the period!

“…To call attention to the works of this gifted young man [Hassam was 32] is but to do him justice. He has that quality in his art which commands the attention and respect of discerning men, and which, in spite of certain affectations, which are undoubtedly natural to the dashing development of such a rapid talent, show him to be an artist very much above the standard of the self-opinionated school which has undertaken to regulate everything artistic in America…

…In the pastels, however, the artist gives us something entirely superior to his other work….There is a night-piece at sea – a mere haze of palpitant gray-blue in which sea and sky are scarcely to be differentiated, and whose only point of light is a flashing evening star, which is, really, one of the finest effects of art I ever saw. It is so close to Nature, and so finely in sympathy with her, that it might make an altar-piece in her honour. The power and luminosity and vital spirit of this simple piece takes the life out of half the other pictures in the gallery….” The author is unknown but possibly it is the journal’s editor and proprietor, Alfred Trumble.

Childe Hassam (pronounced HASS-am) certainly followed his own credo (stated in 1892) about art, that  “the man who will go down to posterity is the man who paints his own time and the scenes of every-day life around him.”

Let me know what you think of Hassam’s pastels. I’d love to hear from you!!

Until next time,

~ Gail