The Hat Bath

According to Bruce Weber, The Hat Bath belongs to a small series of nudes painted by Beckwith from the fall of 1893 to the spring of 1894, when the present work was featured in the Society of American Artist's annual exhibition to much acclaim. "Beckwith utilized a number of different models for his bathing series, but favored a blond woman by the name of Callaghan...Over the course of his career Beckwith rarely painted the nude in oil...Beckwith female nudes rank among his most sensual and intimate undertakings. They reveal both his academic mastery of the human form and his openness to new and modern approaches to composition—here incorporating what he learned about pictorial space from his study of 19th century Japanese prints." (unpublished letter, n.d.)