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Lot Essay
Summer leisure time, a predominant theme in the work of many American Impressionists, captivated William Glackens throughout the 1910s. He began depicting seaside resorts as early as 1908 in Cape Cod, but his most impressive works of this type were painted in Bellport, Long Island. From the summers of 1911 through 1916, Glackens and his family spent the summer in this small coastal community on the southern shore of Long Island. The series of paintings that he executed during these summers are among his finest as he imaginatively explored new painting techniques and developed his own style of Impressionism.
Throughout his career, Glackens was drawn to active settings where he could derive inspiration from the bustle of the characters that inhabited each place. While residing in New York City during the majority of the year, he produced a number of paintings of Washington Square and Central Park in the early 1910s. He was drawn to the animated motion in both parks: in the Washington Square series, he focused on the rituals in the park, from the people on the buses to the parades that took place there. In the Central Park works, he vigorously described the winter sports that the park had to offer. However, by 1911, Glackens turned to beach scenes, a more conventionally Impressionistic subject matter. In much the same manner as his parks series depicts New Yorkers "hurrying about their business, traveling on foot, by automobile, by electric tram, or by double-deck bus." (W.H. Gerdts, William Glackens, New York, 1996, p. 102), his Bellport pictures depict a multitude of people enjoying all of the pleasures that are offered by the rustic seaside community.
Bellport, Long Island was an ideal place for an artist to experiment artistically as it had a great deal to offer for imagery, and it was a place where Glackens could work unencumbered by outside pressures. "Glackens's son Ira recalls that at the time 'Bellport was a simple place, cottages, nothing showy. Bellport was still an unspoiled town, and life was largely confined to the village street. There were no large estates in the neighborhood. Near the beach stood a huge barnlike 'Vacation Home' for New York shopgirls which supplied subjects for many of my father's canvases. A ferry every fine day took bathers across the bay to the ocean beach, Old Inlet, whose rolling white dunes and scraggly bayberries and beach plums saw many picnics.'" (R.J. Wattenmaker, "William Glackens's Beach Scenes at Bellport," in Smithsonian Studies in American Art, vol. 2, no. 2, Spring 1988, pp. 77-9)
In Vacation Home, Glackens has taken full advantage of all that a summer day in Bellport had to offer. In the foreground, he presents a large group of figures in the water, either bathing alone, or frolicking in small groups. Further into the composition is the bright sandy beach, with vibrant green grass and a number of figures moving in various directions. The lush green trees sway in the summer wind, and Glackens has managed to include the stately architecture of the Vacation Home as well as an American flag, unfurled and flapping in the wind. Naturally drawn to the activities on the beach, Glackens uses them to foster his artistic development by experimenting with new brushstrokes and intensity of color. Richard Wattenmaker writes of Vacation Home: "The canvas is characterized by impressionistic tonality, color contrasts, and brushwork. To these are added Glackens's very personal feeling for rugged, sparkling juicy color and for emphatic contrasts of colors and shapes. The chunky, cut-glass surface of the blue water, the crisp terseness of the figures, the patterns of the trees and buildings, the smoother consistency of the clouds and sky, all create a multiplicity of shapes with contrasting textural quality. Demarcations are clear and clean-cut; the foreground figures are played off against the angled, faceted shapes of the open gazebo on the left, the dressing sheds on the right, and the walls and roofs beyond. All are gleaming, infused with sunlight. Space is circumscribed by the forceful stepladder layering of patterns, with notes of surprising boldness, such as the striking green band beneath and beyond the trees to the right rear of the gazebo, as well as the diminutive figure in the blue skirt on the steps in the distance, all of which reveals Glackens's imaginative presentation of his visual world." (R.J. Wattenmaker, "William Glackens's Beach Scenes at Bellport," pp. 77-9)
The pictures that William Glackens painted in Bellport, Long Island with their bold color schemes and representations of form and space, represent the artist's vivid imagination at its best. It is therefore no wonder that they were "not only the pictures he most frequently exhibited but also his most popular, judging by their presence today in many of America's leading art institutions. They also enjoyed the most critical attention in their own time and were addressed again in the most serious scholarly study that Glackens has received in recent years." (W.H. Gerdts, William Glackens, p. 109) Apart from their astounding aesthetic appeal, their popularity derives from their modern treatment of a conventionally appealing subject matter. While a number of his fellow American artists focused on the same type of subject, Glackens's beach scenes have a quality that make them unique. "One reviewer perhaps best summed up the character of his beach and park pictures: 'His world is a restless reflection of himself--a world crowded with a multitude of accidents and incidents all worth recording; all crying out to be recorded and all unseen by most of us, for most of us have grown a hard shell around our curiosity." (William Glackens, p. 113)
Throughout his career, Glackens was drawn to active settings where he could derive inspiration from the bustle of the characters that inhabited each place. While residing in New York City during the majority of the year, he produced a number of paintings of Washington Square and Central Park in the early 1910s. He was drawn to the animated motion in both parks: in the Washington Square series, he focused on the rituals in the park, from the people on the buses to the parades that took place there. In the Central Park works, he vigorously described the winter sports that the park had to offer. However, by 1911, Glackens turned to beach scenes, a more conventionally Impressionistic subject matter. In much the same manner as his parks series depicts New Yorkers "hurrying about their business, traveling on foot, by automobile, by electric tram, or by double-deck bus." (W.H. Gerdts, William Glackens, New York, 1996, p. 102), his Bellport pictures depict a multitude of people enjoying all of the pleasures that are offered by the rustic seaside community.
Bellport, Long Island was an ideal place for an artist to experiment artistically as it had a great deal to offer for imagery, and it was a place where Glackens could work unencumbered by outside pressures. "Glackens's son Ira recalls that at the time 'Bellport was a simple place, cottages, nothing showy. Bellport was still an unspoiled town, and life was largely confined to the village street. There were no large estates in the neighborhood. Near the beach stood a huge barnlike 'Vacation Home' for New York shopgirls which supplied subjects for many of my father's canvases. A ferry every fine day took bathers across the bay to the ocean beach, Old Inlet, whose rolling white dunes and scraggly bayberries and beach plums saw many picnics.'" (R.J. Wattenmaker, "William Glackens's Beach Scenes at Bellport," in Smithsonian Studies in American Art, vol. 2, no. 2, Spring 1988, pp. 77-9)
In Vacation Home, Glackens has taken full advantage of all that a summer day in Bellport had to offer. In the foreground, he presents a large group of figures in the water, either bathing alone, or frolicking in small groups. Further into the composition is the bright sandy beach, with vibrant green grass and a number of figures moving in various directions. The lush green trees sway in the summer wind, and Glackens has managed to include the stately architecture of the Vacation Home as well as an American flag, unfurled and flapping in the wind. Naturally drawn to the activities on the beach, Glackens uses them to foster his artistic development by experimenting with new brushstrokes and intensity of color. Richard Wattenmaker writes of Vacation Home: "The canvas is characterized by impressionistic tonality, color contrasts, and brushwork. To these are added Glackens's very personal feeling for rugged, sparkling juicy color and for emphatic contrasts of colors and shapes. The chunky, cut-glass surface of the blue water, the crisp terseness of the figures, the patterns of the trees and buildings, the smoother consistency of the clouds and sky, all create a multiplicity of shapes with contrasting textural quality. Demarcations are clear and clean-cut; the foreground figures are played off against the angled, faceted shapes of the open gazebo on the left, the dressing sheds on the right, and the walls and roofs beyond. All are gleaming, infused with sunlight. Space is circumscribed by the forceful stepladder layering of patterns, with notes of surprising boldness, such as the striking green band beneath and beyond the trees to the right rear of the gazebo, as well as the diminutive figure in the blue skirt on the steps in the distance, all of which reveals Glackens's imaginative presentation of his visual world." (R.J. Wattenmaker, "William Glackens's Beach Scenes at Bellport," pp. 77-9)
The pictures that William Glackens painted in Bellport, Long Island with their bold color schemes and representations of form and space, represent the artist's vivid imagination at its best. It is therefore no wonder that they were "not only the pictures he most frequently exhibited but also his most popular, judging by their presence today in many of America's leading art institutions. They also enjoyed the most critical attention in their own time and were addressed again in the most serious scholarly study that Glackens has received in recent years." (W.H. Gerdts, William Glackens, p. 109) Apart from their astounding aesthetic appeal, their popularity derives from their modern treatment of a conventionally appealing subject matter. While a number of his fellow American artists focused on the same type of subject, Glackens's beach scenes have a quality that make them unique. "One reviewer perhaps best summed up the character of his beach and park pictures: 'His world is a restless reflection of himself--a world crowded with a multitude of accidents and incidents all worth recording; all crying out to be recorded and all unseen by most of us, for most of us have grown a hard shell around our curiosity." (William Glackens, p. 113)