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Lot Essay
We would like to thank the Hassam catalogue raisonné committee for their assistance with cataloguing this work.
This painting will be included in Stuart P. Feld's and Kathleen M. Burnside's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.
Childe Hassam was a frequent visitor to the Florence Griswold House in Old Lyme, Connecticut, between 1903 and 1909. Apple Trees in Bloom, Old Lyme was painted in 1904 in the gardens of the home. The brushstrokes are vigorously applied with a familiarity that derives from his lengthy affection for the motif of a blossoming fruit tree. The two apple trees in the composition are flanked by the Lieutenant River and the studio Hassam converted from a barn for his stays in Old Lyme. In a letter to J. Alden Weir, Hassam cheerfully wrote of his painting shed there, “You are all well I hope and of course you are enjoying that bully studio! You should see mine here, just the place for high thinking and low living.” (as quoted in Childe Hassam: American Impressionist, New York, 2004, p. 157)
A photograph of Hassam painting the present work in front of this studio is in the collection of the Florence Griswold Museum and Lyme Historical Society Archives. However, despite working from life, the artist certainly employed artistic license, as archeologists have confirmed that no structure stood as close to the river as Hassam painted it. Rather, the site of his studio was likely the northwest corner of the orchard. Through his strategically altered composition in Apple Trees in Bloom, Old Lyme, Hassam emphasizes the sense of an older way of life at a time when New England was increasingly turning toward industry. Susan G. Larkin develops this point further, stating, “the rustic shed and wire fence suggest a farm, not a studio. The combination of an old tree and a young one, implying the past and the future, conveys the nostalgia and optimism that permeated American culture at the turn of the last Century." (Childe Hassam: American Impressionist, p. 157)
This painting will be included in Stuart P. Feld's and Kathleen M. Burnside's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.
Childe Hassam was a frequent visitor to the Florence Griswold House in Old Lyme, Connecticut, between 1903 and 1909. Apple Trees in Bloom, Old Lyme was painted in 1904 in the gardens of the home. The brushstrokes are vigorously applied with a familiarity that derives from his lengthy affection for the motif of a blossoming fruit tree. The two apple trees in the composition are flanked by the Lieutenant River and the studio Hassam converted from a barn for his stays in Old Lyme. In a letter to J. Alden Weir, Hassam cheerfully wrote of his painting shed there, “You are all well I hope and of course you are enjoying that bully studio! You should see mine here, just the place for high thinking and low living.” (as quoted in Childe Hassam: American Impressionist, New York, 2004, p. 157)
A photograph of Hassam painting the present work in front of this studio is in the collection of the Florence Griswold Museum and Lyme Historical Society Archives. However, despite working from life, the artist certainly employed artistic license, as archeologists have confirmed that no structure stood as close to the river as Hassam painted it. Rather, the site of his studio was likely the northwest corner of the orchard. Through his strategically altered composition in Apple Trees in Bloom, Old Lyme, Hassam emphasizes the sense of an older way of life at a time when New England was increasingly turning toward industry. Susan G. Larkin develops this point further, stating, “the rustic shed and wire fence suggest a farm, not a studio. The combination of an old tree and a young one, implying the past and the future, conveys the nostalgia and optimism that permeated American culture at the turn of the last Century." (Childe Hassam: American Impressionist, p. 157)