Gloucester Harbor

Childe Hassam first visited the charming harbor town of Gloucester, Massachusetts in the early 1880s. Immediately enchanted and inspired by this Cape Ann artists' colony, he would return several times throughout his career. Valerie Ann Leeds writes of the present work, "Hassam's Gloucester Harbor of 1918 is a later recapitulation of a theme that Hassam commenced painting in the 1890s...Gloucester Harbor, in the Lawrence collection belongs to a series of scenes from 1918 to 1919 that are a late and final reprise of this subject in Hassam's ouevre. The 1918 harbor scene differs from the earlier works in perspective and technique. It has a lighter and more energized touch and an overall translucence typical of Hassam's late painting style... The view presented in the Lawrence's painting appears to have been executed on location with relative speed, taken from the ridge of Banner Hill in East Gloucester." (In the American Spirit: Realism and Impressionism from the Lawrence Collection, exhibition catalogue, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1999, p. 17)

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