Isles of Shoals

In 1889 Childe Hassam ventured to the remote island of Appledore nestled among the Isles of Shoals off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. Though Appledore was primarily a resort community, Hassam was lured to the island by the poetess and avid gardener, Celia Thaxter. Thaxter had established an informal salon composed of distinguished writers, musicians and noteworthy artists such as Ross Turner, J. Appleton Brown and Arthur Quartley. Hassam discovered in Thaxter a unique and engaging spirit, who invoked in him a sense of freedom, exhilaration and imagination. The shoreline of Appledore was a great attraction to any island visitor, whether tourist or artist. "He saw what Thaxter also admired, 'a splendor of wild clouds at sunset, dusk heaps with scarlet fringes, scattered flecks of flame in a clear crimson air above the fallen sun.'" (C.P. Curry, Childe Hassam: An Island Garden Revisited, New York, 1990, p. 166) In the present work, Hassam captures an autumnal view of the Shoals in washes of reddish browns and yellows highlighted with touches of blue and the green of the waning summer, the scene dominated by the spiky yarrow that have finished blooming, a portent of autumn.

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