Street Scene

Maurice Prendergast incorporated his signature in a shop sign over a large paned glass window in the monotype Street Scene (CR 1624), amusingly referencing his earlier career as a card designer.  With elaborate detail, the artist reproduced not only a red-brick building store front but also a brick sidewalk peopled with men, women, and children.  The orientation of horizontal wall bricks opposes the diagonal slant of the sidewalk bricks, establishing a believable space while uniting the composition.  The grid of the window panes within a larger geometric framework of windows, shutters, door, lamp post, and tree trunks is brilliantly achieved, dominating the curvilinear shapes of the window shoppers who are contrasted against them.  The artist's clever technique of alternating the direction of brushstrokes to represent light reflecting on the glass windows is equaled by the inclusion of shadowy figures in the second-story windows to suggest depth.

The same matrix was used for both Street Scene and Street Scene, Boston (Private Collection, CR 1625), which is a second print, or cognate.  Interestingly, Prendergast enhanced the first monotype with watercolor and graphite.  The artist also manipulated the matrix by adding more ink before printing the second image, thereby negating the usual pale colors of a second print.  The monotype Afternoon (The Corcoran Gallery of Art, CR 1623) is a smaller but identical version of Street Scene.  These three similar but essentially unique monotypes illustrate Prendergast's experimental procedures with this medium. 

The setting for this particular street scene is unspecified, but with his signature placed prominently within the image Prendergast seems to claim it as his own. Shop fronts are central to several of his monotype images set in London, including Primrose Hill (TF 1992.98, CR 1619); a more decorative interpretation, set in Italy is Bella Regazza: Merceria, Venice (TF 1992.71, CR 1703). Prendergast was undoubtedly influenced by James McNeill Whistler's small oil paintings in which the doors and windows of old shop fronts create abstract grids, as for example in A Chelsea Shop (TF 1992.148).  In his interpretations of the subject, Prendergast incorporated his own design elements, notably the brick pavement and walls, and the verticals of trees and lamp posts. Street Scene fits most closely into the "Processional" series, although its strollers are more loosely connected. 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. 25).

The Monotypes of Maurice Prendergast: A Loan Exhibition, Davis & Long Company, New York, New York, April 4–28, 1979. [exh. cat.]

The Painterly Print: Monotypes from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York (organizer). Venues: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, October 16–December 7, 1980; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, January 24–March 22, 1981. [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.]

A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 21–June 21, 1987. [exh. cat.]

American Treasures: Chase, Whistler and the Prendergasts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 26, 1996–January 5, 1997.

The Decorative Form: The Aesthetic Movement, Arts & Crafts and the Asian Influence in American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 16–December 5, 1999.

Figures and Forms: Selections from the Terra Foundation for the Arts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 9–July 9, 2000.

Selections from the Collection of Hirschl & Adler Galleries: American Paintings 1876–1963. New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., 1975. Ill. no. 27.

Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Prints: Catalogue Number 9. New York: David Tunick Inc., 1977. Ill. no. 182.

Langdale, Cecily. The Monotypes of Maurice Prendergast. (exh. cat., Davis & Long Company). New York: Davis & Long Company, 1979. Text pp. 10, 13, 14; ill. no. 16, p. 20 (color), no. 16, p. 50 (black & white).

Langdale, Cecily. "Maurice Prendergast: An American Post-Impressionist." Connoisseur 202 (December 1979): 248–53. Text p. 252.

Kiehl, David W. "Monotypes in America in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries." The Painterly Print: Monotypes from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century. (exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980. Ill. no. 53, p.158.

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. 12, 27, 40, 68; ill. no. 11, p. 69 (color).

Kessler, Pamela. "Prendergast's Fleeting Images." Washington Post: Weekend (February 1, 1985): 39. Ill. p. 39 (color).

"Experimentation with Modernism: Museum Exhibit to Display 55 Prendergast Monotypes." [North Adams] Transcript (September 13, 1985): 6. Text p. 6.

Geeting, Karen H. "Museum Notebook." Southwest Art (January 1986): 76. Text p. 76; ill. p. 76.

Heimann, Nora M. "Singular Impressions." Arts [The Magazine for Members of The Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts] 9:12 (December 1986): 20–23. Text p. 22; ill. p. 23 (color).

Atkinson, D. Scott et al. A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-100, p. 209 (color).

Wisneski, Kurt. Monotype/Monoprint: History and Techniques. Ithaca, New York: Bullbrier Press, 1995. Fig. 24, p. 48 (color).

Clark, Carol. American Drawings and Watercolors in the Robert Lehman Collection. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press, 1992. Fig. 4.22, p. 123.

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. 1624, p. 590; ill. no. 1624, p. 590 (black & white).