Summer Hotel, painted in 1909, was executed at a turning point in William Glackens career. In fact, it was not only an exciting time for Glackens, rather it was a fascinating and transitional period for the whole of American Art.

Glackens began his artistic career in Philadelphia at an early age and after a trip to Paris in 1895, he settled in New York in 1896. In New York, he soon garnered several prestigious illustrational jobs, but more importantly, he began a number of associations, with Henri, Luks, Sloan and others that would be influential not only for his artistic development, but for the entire American Realist movement in the early 1900s.

Early in 1908, Glackens seemed frustrated with much of his work and he was fairly pessimistic regarding the opening of the upcoming exhibition of The Eight at the Macbeth Galleries. He wrote at this time "I am already sick of the damn exhibition. There has been too much talk about it. I will probably fall very flat. In my effort to fix my pictures up so far I have only succeeded in spoiling them." Thankfully, Glackens pessimism was unfounded and the exhibition of the Eight was well received. In fact, there are reports that as many as three hundred people an hour poured through the Macbeth Galleries.

Although Glackens failed to sell any of his pictures at the exhibition, he gained some much needed encouragement and reassurance in his own work. This new found confidence gave him the impetus to experiment with new ideas. Summer Hotel, 1909, is one of the artist's early investigations with Impressionism and was probably painted in Gloucester, an which Glackens and other artist's used for inspiration. This painting was executed at a turning point in the artist's development and it provides us with a clear view of much to come later in Glackens career.