Reflection

Children play along a narrow stream or canal in Maurice Prendergast's monotype Reflection (CR 1667).  One boy, his back to the viewer, stands on a plank bridging the water, which offers a distorted reflection of his form on its light-green surface.  Interestingly, the real boy stands with his legs apart while his reflection's legs are together.  Nearby, another lad bends over, perhaps pulling a fish from the water.  On either side of the stream, girls in beribboned hats and pastel-tinted dresses hold fishing rods over the water and other children wander along the banks or peer into its depths.  The overall green tones of the image suggest a spring or summer day in the park.  This monotype is one of several compositions in which Prendergast juxtaposed a strong geometric structure with rhythmic undulating curves.

  The faint pastel colors and the blurred white outlines of the figures and fishing poles, made from a stylus or the sharp end of a brush, indicate that Reflection is a second print or cognate from the matrix first used to produce Fishing Party (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, CR 1666).   A dark green border frames the image with the artist inscribing his three-initial monogram in the plate to the left of center, which is difficult to see in this second pull.  At some time in the past someone other than the artist wrote in graphite the words "Reflection reflection" in the lower center below the image (not visible here) with the second word partially erased.  This title is a clever response to the idea of reflection in a second pull and is a distinctive contribution to the "Children at Play" series.

Until 1896, Prendergast lived in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury near Franklin Park, the largest of the urban green spaces designed by Frederick Law Olmsted as part of Boston's "green necklace" of parks.  The activities of visitors to Franklin Park provided a variety of subjects for the artist.  The fluid brushwork and subject of Reflection places it in another of the artist's monotype series, "Springtime Play."  In addition to Reflection, the monotypes inspired by the setting include, among others, Spring in Franklin Park (TF 1992.106, CR 1646), In the Park (TF1992.86, CR 1642), three entitled The Breezy Common (TF 1992.72, CR 1661; TF 1992.73, CR 1657; and TF 1992.74, CR 1658), and The Race (TF 1992.101, CR 1669)—the last featuring a narrow stream bridged by planks similar to that in Reflection.  Several of these monotypes are dated 1895 in the plate, making that a likely date for Reflection as well. For more information, see Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné (1990), to which the CR numbers for the monotypes noted above refer.

[possibly exhibited] Monotypes in Color by Maurice Prendergast, Kraushaar Galleries, New York, New York, December 8–31, 1936 (perhaps as no. 13, Fishing Party).

[possibly exhibited] Special Exhibition of Monotypes by Maurice Brazil Prendergast, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., March 28–May 9, 1937 (perhaps as no. 2, Fishing Party).

[possibly exhibited] The Prendergasts: Retrospective Exhibition of the Work of Maurice and Charles Prendergast, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, September 24–November 6, 1938 (perhaps as no. 121, Fishing Party). [exh. cat.]

Monotypes by Maurice Prendergast, Kraushaar Galleries, New York, New York, May 7–31, 1956.

Maurice Prendergast: The Monotypes, William Cooper Procter Art Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, May 1–21, 1967. [exh. cat.]

The Monotype: An Edition of One, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, Washington, D.C. (organizer). Venue: William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, October 14–November 12, 1972. [exh. cat.]

Monotypes by Maurice Prendergast from the Terra Museum of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venues: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., January 27–April 14, 1985; Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, April 27–June 30, 1985; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, July 12–September 8, 1985; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, September 20–November 17, 1985; Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan, November 24, 1985–January 19, 1986; Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, January 28–February 24, 1986; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, May 13–June 15, 1986; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 23–August 24, 1986; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama, September 2–October 26, 1986; The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, November 2–30, 1986; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, December 13, 1986–February 15, 1987; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida, June 21–July 31, 1987; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, August 8–September 27, 1987; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, October 4–November 5, 1987; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 15, 1987–January 7, 1988; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, January 20–March 22, 1988; Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 9–May 29, 1988. [exh. cat.]

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 2004.

Phillips, Matt. "Prendergast." Bard Papers 2:1 (1966): 32, 34. Text p. 32.

Phillips, Matt. Maurice Prendergast: The Monotypes. (exh. cat., William Cooper Procter Art Center). Annandale-on-Hudson, New York: William Cooper Procter Art Center, Bard College, 1967. Text p. 3.

Langdale, Cecily. Monotypes by Maurice Prendergast in the Terra Museum of American Art. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Museum of American Art, 1984. Text pp. 25, 32, 38, 142; ill. no. 48, p. 143 (color).

Clark, Carol, Nancy Mowll Mathews and Gwendolyn Owens. Maurice Brazil Prendergast; Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné. Munich, Germany, and Williamstown, Massachusetts: Prestel-Verlag and The President and Trustees of Williams College, 1990. No. 1667, p. 603; ill. no. 1667, p. 603 (black & white).