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Lot Essay
Painted circa 1911, Waterfall was executed during the last decade of Prendergast's career. During this time, he had developed a highly personal, innovative style of painting, strongly influenced by French Post-Impressionists such as Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. As indicated in his letters, he also found profound inspiration in the work of Cezanne, Matisse, Renoir and the Fauves. Nancy Mathews describes the paintings of the artist's later period, "The art that he produced within this context drew on both the art and the theories formulated in Europe which were filtered through American sensibilities. Prendergast, as an artist open to and eager for the 'new impulse' represents the aspirations and achievements of his age." (C. Clark, N.M. Mathews and G. Owens, Maurice Brazil Prendergast and Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1990, p.45)
Prendergast's interest in the tactile properties of oil is evident in the heavily encrusted surfaces of his late paintings in which thickly applied layers of contrasting pigments create a brightly-hued, tapestried effect. The artist's color scheme is applied in a variety of brushstrokes, a departure from his earlier preference for consistent brushwork within a single picture. Milton Brown describes this change in technique, "The brushstrokes become larger and bolder and take on an abstract quality apart from the underlying forms they are supposed to define, moving in independent directions, and varying in size and shape. But, while obscuring and overriding those forms, they succeed in unifying the pictorial surface." (Maurice Brazil Prendergast and Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné, p. 22)
Integral to many of Prendergast's works are the frames. Charles Prendergast, Maurice's brother, was an artist and a master framemaker. The two worked closely together designing and producing frames that would beautifully compliment his brother's paintings -- Waterfall is such an example. Maurice, who admired the lines of period frames, created frames reminiscent of various European styles including Italian and Venetian Renaissance and Spanish Baroque. The present frame beautifully harmonizes with the texture and movement of the painting creating a completely unified effect.
Prendergast's interest in the tactile properties of oil is evident in the heavily encrusted surfaces of his late paintings in which thickly applied layers of contrasting pigments create a brightly-hued, tapestried effect. The artist's color scheme is applied in a variety of brushstrokes, a departure from his earlier preference for consistent brushwork within a single picture. Milton Brown describes this change in technique, "The brushstrokes become larger and bolder and take on an abstract quality apart from the underlying forms they are supposed to define, moving in independent directions, and varying in size and shape. But, while obscuring and overriding those forms, they succeed in unifying the pictorial surface." (Maurice Brazil Prendergast and Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné, p. 22)
Integral to many of Prendergast's works are the frames. Charles Prendergast, Maurice's brother, was an artist and a master framemaker. The two worked closely together designing and producing frames that would beautifully compliment his brother's paintings -- Waterfall is such an example. Maurice, who admired the lines of period frames, created frames reminiscent of various European styles including Italian and Venetian Renaissance and Spanish Baroque. The present frame beautifully harmonizes with the texture and movement of the painting creating a completely unified effect.