Summer Day

Broken brushwork, intense color, and seemingly violent movements distinguish Summer Day (CR 1764) as a late monotype by Maurice Prendergast.  Pristine billowing white clouds and wind-blown sails are echoed in the shape of a white dress that balances the composition in the foreground.  Their light colors are set off by dark brown boulders.  Remnants of the brushwork create a tactility that echoes the roughness of the rocky shoreline.  Skillfully applying rough staccato brushwork and deftly wiping away pigment with a cloth from the picture's matrix to render the effects of whitecaps cresting the ocean's waves, Prendergast elicits the sensation of a windy day.  The artist's color sensibility is also present in a bold ocher dress that enhances the deep blue-green of the ocean.  One of the under-appreciated aspects of Prendergast's work is his sense of humor.  In Summer Day the startled expressions of the two women, who face the viewer, are portrayed by pursed lips and hands clutching a hat or umbrella. 

The artist's initials and the date 1901 inscribed in the lower-right corner of the monotype are not believed to be by the artist's hand.  It is possible that his brother Charles Prendergast, who inherited the artist's estate, was responsible for the additional information when the work was sold in 1943. The monotype does appear to date late in the ten-year span (c. 1892 to 1902) in which Prendergast created his monotypes.  The painterly quality of Summer Day is consistent with the artist's shifting attention at that time from the mediums of watercolor and monotype to oil painting.  The dramatic sense of movement, rough broken brushwork, and saturated colors seen here are also found in another late monotype, Lighthouse (TF 1992.93, CR 1762).  Summer Day belongs to an informal series of monotypes where adults enjoy the shore called "Shore Promenades." For more information, see Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné (1990), to which the CR numbers for the monotypes noted above refer.

Monotypes in Color by Maurice Prendergast, Kraushaar Galleries, New York, New York, December 8–31, 1936, no. 30.

Special Exhibition of Monotypes by Maurice Brazil Prendergast, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., March 28–May 9, 1937, no. 16.

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. [exh. cat.]

Maurice Prendergast, 1859–1924, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, October 26–December 4, 1960; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, December 29, 1960–February 5, 1961; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, February 21–April 2, 1961; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, April 22–June 3, 1961; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, June 20–July 30, 1961. [exh. cat.]

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

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

The Work of Charles and Maurice Prendergast, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 16–April 21, 1991.

Maurice Prendergast, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts (organizer). Venues: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, February 21–April 22, 1991; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., May 18–August 25, 1991. [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.

Singular Impressions: The Monotype in America, The National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (organizer). Venues: The National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., April 4–August 3, 1997; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 5–November 9, 1997; Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, January 15–March 31, 1998. [exh. cat.]

Rhys, Hedley Howell. Maurice Prendergast, 1859–1924. (exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts). Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Harvard University Press, 1960. Text pp. 105–106 (checklist); ill. no. 136, p. 153 (black & white).

Langdale, Cecily. The Monotypes of Maurice Prendergast. (exh. cat., Davis & Long Company). New York: Davis & Long Company, 1979. Text pp. 9, 11; ill. no. 98, p. 134 (black & white).

Wattenmaker, Richard J. "Maurice Prendergast." Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin 40 (1982–1983): 25-37. Text p. 36.

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. 32, 140, 142, 144; ill. no. 49, p. 145 (color).

Langdale, Cecily. "The Late Watercolor/Pastels of Maurice Prendergast. Text p. 1089.

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. 1764, p. 635; ill. no. 1764, p. 635 (black & white).

Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Maurice Prendergast. (exh. cat., Williams College Museum of Art). Munich, Germany, and Williamstown, Massachusetts: Prestel-Verlag and The President and Trustees of Williams College, 1990. Pl. 129, p. 174 (color).

Wattenmaker, Richard J. Maurice Prendergast. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with The National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1994. Pl. 57, p. 80 (color).

Moser, Joann. Singular Impressions: The Monotype in America. (exh. cat., National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution). Washington, D.C.: Published for the National Museum of American Art by Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997. Fig. 44.