The South Ledges, Appledore

Media - 1929.6.62 - SAAM-1929.6.62_2 - 133481
Copied Childe Hassam, The South Ledges, Appledore, 1913, oil on canvas, 34 1436 18 in. (87.091.6 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.62
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Artwork Details

Title
The South Ledges, Appledore
Date
1913
Dimensions
34 1436 18 in. (87.091.6 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of John Gellatly
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Highlights
Keywords
  • Dress — accessory — hat
  • Figure female — full length
  • Landscape — coast
  • Landscape — Maine — Appledore Island
  • Landscape — island — Appledore Island
Object Number
1929.6.62

Artwork Description

Hassam spent many summers on Appledore Island off the coast of Maine. Every year, he and a circle of musicians, writers and other artists made an informal colony based at the home of his friend, the poet Celia Thaxter. In Thaxter's gardens and on the rocky beaches, Hassam used the flickering brushwork and brilliant colors he had adopted in France to capture the spangled light of Appledore's brief summer. This painting evokes the leisurely, seasonal rhythms of America's priveleged families in the last years before the Great War. A beautifully dressed woman shields her face from the sun; she looks down and away, as if absorbed in the song of a sandpiper, the island bird that inspired Celia Thaxter's most famous children's poem.

Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006

Publication Label

American Impressionism emerged in the late 1880s when a generation of American artists studied abroad to absorb the new palette and compositions that were modernizing painting in France. Landscapes and domestic scenes by these American Impressionists are as wonderfully fresh and sparkling as those by their more familiar French counterparts. These artists, attracted to the light and color of painting outdoors, celebrate a modern view of life as America entered the twentieth century.

Childe Hassam spent many summers on Appledore Island off the coast of Maine. Every year, he and a circle of musicians, writers, and other artists made an informal colony based at the home of his friend, the poet Celia Thaxter. In Thaxter's gardens and on the rocky beaches, Hassam used the flickering brushwork and brilliant colors he had adopted in France to capture the spangled light of Appledore's brief summer.

Smithsonian American Art Museum: Commemorative Guide. Nashville, TN: Beckon Books, 2015.

Related Books

Book cover of American Impressionists
American Impressionism: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
American Impressionism: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum commemorates Treasures to Go, a series of eight exhibitions from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, touring the nation through 2002. The Principal Financial Group is a proud partner in presenting these treasures to the American people.