.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Maurice Prendergast's representations of daily life are bold and modern interpretations of themes that have attracted artists for generations. Prendergast's work, which was eagerly sought after by many of the most avant-garde collectors of his time, is largely characterized by elaborately choreographed multi-figured panoramas which he developed throughout his career.
In a careful balance of light and shadow, as well as bright and dark colors, Salem Harbor No. 2 is a tour-de-force of Prendergast's creativity and spirit. The vivid and active surface of Salem Harbor No. 2, executed circa 1920-23, is a hallmark of Prendergast's work in watercolor. The artist has juxtaposed bold spots of color with more fluid and rhythmic curving lines. The final composition is a splendid example of the artist's mature style in the medium of watercolor.
The transformation of Prendergast's earlier and tighter style of watercolor technique to a much more fluid and modernist style as seen in Salem Harbor No. 2 is generally credited to his fourth trip to Europe in 1907. While in Paris he studied the works of Signac, Cézanne and others including the controversial works of Matisse shown at the 1907 Salon d'Autonne.
While in Paris in 1907 Prendergast was invited to join a group exhibition to be mounted the following year at the William Macbeth Gallery in New York. Also invited to the landmark show were artists who would come to be known collectively as The Eight. Stylistically Prendergast's work was far more advanced than the others, but he agreed to contribute seventeen paintings to the exhibition.
Richard J. Wattenmaker notes that Prendergast's works from this decade are "the culmination of more than thirty years of patient and determined exploration, trial and error, wholly personal variations on subjects that have captivated the most subtle and sophisticated minds of the Western tradition since the dawn of the Renaissance. Prendergast's comprehensive experiments within this humanistic tradition bring to mind his unique adaptations of ideas from both East and West. If modern painting is primarily about extending the boundaries of color and color relations, Maurice Prendergast has a stature that guarantees him an important place in the pantheon with the masters he so admired and whose ideas he so richly repaid." (Maurice Prendergast, New York, 1994, p. 143-145)
In a careful balance of light and shadow, as well as bright and dark colors, Salem Harbor No. 2 is a tour-de-force of Prendergast's creativity and spirit. The vivid and active surface of Salem Harbor No. 2, executed circa 1920-23, is a hallmark of Prendergast's work in watercolor. The artist has juxtaposed bold spots of color with more fluid and rhythmic curving lines. The final composition is a splendid example of the artist's mature style in the medium of watercolor.
The transformation of Prendergast's earlier and tighter style of watercolor technique to a much more fluid and modernist style as seen in Salem Harbor No. 2 is generally credited to his fourth trip to Europe in 1907. While in Paris he studied the works of Signac, Cézanne and others including the controversial works of Matisse shown at the 1907 Salon d'Autonne.
While in Paris in 1907 Prendergast was invited to join a group exhibition to be mounted the following year at the William Macbeth Gallery in New York. Also invited to the landmark show were artists who would come to be known collectively as The Eight. Stylistically Prendergast's work was far more advanced than the others, but he agreed to contribute seventeen paintings to the exhibition.
Richard J. Wattenmaker notes that Prendergast's works from this decade are "the culmination of more than thirty years of patient and determined exploration, trial and error, wholly personal variations on subjects that have captivated the most subtle and sophisticated minds of the Western tradition since the dawn of the Renaissance. Prendergast's comprehensive experiments within this humanistic tradition bring to mind his unique adaptations of ideas from both East and West. If modern painting is primarily about extending the boundaries of color and color relations, Maurice Prendergast has a stature that guarantees him an important place in the pantheon with the masters he so admired and whose ideas he so richly repaid." (Maurice Prendergast, New York, 1994, p. 143-145)