American Impressionism

About the Artist

About the Artist

Childe Hassam was perhaps America’s best-known Impressionist painter. Known as a painter of urban scenes, Hassam recorded many of his outdoor subjects on extended stays in Europe or on visits to artists' colonies throughout New England. Hassam received in-depth exposure to Impressionism while studying in France between 1886 and 1889.  Upon his return to the United States, he settled in New York.  From there, he made repeated visits to Appledore, one of the Isles of Shoals of off the coast of New Hampshire. Here, he spent summers with other artists and his close friend, Celia Thaxter. Thaxter persuaded him to drop his given first name "Frederick" in favor of his more exotic middle name Childe.

An artist who relied on the sale of his paintings as his sole source of income, Hassam achieved considerable success during his lifetime. Among the honors he received was an invitation to display his art work in a separate room at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which was held in San Francisco in 1915. The artist came west to view the exhibition and spend time painting. After his return to the East, he painted On the Palisades, whose title refers to a well-known geologic feature along the Hudson River. In this view, rendered from the Palisades towards New York City, Hassam now looked toward the home where he died in 1935, still the dean of the American Impressionist school.

About the Artwork

An Outdoor Portrait of Miss Weir documents Hassam’s mature Impressionist style. The thick application of heightened pigments creates effects of dappled light. An Outdoor Portrait of Miss Weir indicates that although Hassam painted directly from nature, used a palette dominated by pastel tones, and employed broken strokes of color to develop his compositions, he nonetheless retained the identity of his subject rather than dissolving it in an envelope of light in the manner of the French Impressionists. Indeed, American Impressionism was distinguished from its European counterpart in holding on to its realist origins. Hassam also began to incorporate Post-Impressionist stylistic devices into his work after 1900, which are reflected in the ambitious portrait, where the brushstrokes resemble blocks of color in many places.

Appledore, where Hassam created nearly ten percent of his paintings and watercolors, is believed to be shown in the background of An Outdoor Portrait of Miss Weir, a rare example of a portrait by the artist. The subject, who was identified only as Portrait Out of Doors. Miss W, when the painting was exhibited in New York in 1926, is now understood to be one of J. Alden Weir's three daughters. Hassam met Weir, a member of a prominent family of American artists, in early 1890.They quickly established a close friendship that was interrupted only by Weir's death in 1919. Weir, who was beginning to explore Impressionism at the time of their introduction, joined Hassam and eight other artists in leaving the conservative Society of American Artists in 1898 to establish The Ten American Artists, an exhibition group modeled on the Impressionists in France.

The posed figure in An Outdoor Portrait of Miss Weir exemplifies the refined women at leisure who dominate the canvases of other turn-of-the-century Impressionist artists working in Boston and New York. Fashionably dressed in white, and shown amidst dappled sunlight that filters through the surrounding foliage, Miss Weir appears at once immobile and aloof as she gazes away from th.e viewer. Despite the fact that she occupies the majority of the canvas and her face is modeled with a series of relatively tight brush strokes (which contrast with the artist's looser treatment of the figure) little information is conveyed about the sitter's personality. Rather, Hassam appears more engaged with how to contrast Miss Weir's figure to and integrate it with the rather elaborate yet undefined outdoors view against which she is placed. The challenge Hassam confronted may explain why he later added a strip of canvas to the right side of the painting, enlarging the composition, and retained An Outdoor Portrait of Miss Weir throughout his lifetime.