Woman on Ship Deck

Her loose hair blown by a stiff ocean breeze, a young woman contemplates flying seagulls from the deck of a ship in Woman on Ship Deck (CR 1586).  It is only in his monotypes that Maurice Prendergast explored an extraordinary "Ocean Liners" suite of images.  The red of the woman’s skirt and Tam o' Shanter hat is forcefully set off against the deep blue of the water, while such simple shapes stand in opposition to the detailed fretwork design of the ship's white railing.  As in other monotypes, the artist organized the composition around three bands of color: sky blue, ocean blue, and the ocher wooden planks of the ship's deck.  It could be argued that the transparent white and gray of the railing is a fourth band dividing the small sheet of Japanese paper.

  From his first forays into creating monotypes, wind and motion were major themes for the artist.  The compositional similarities found in Woman on Ship Deck are easily recognized in Esplanade (TF 1999.109, CR 1564), the artist's purportedly first monotype, which shares the motif of a diagonally placed railing.  The differences are critical as well; this is not a nocturnal scene and the light reflections in the water are replaced with the ocean's whitecaps and seagulls careening over the water.  Noteworthy is the compositional complexity of contrasting the bold, angled black lines of the ship's rigging to the ship's intricate white railing; both of these linear components are then juxtaposed to simple block of colors-the girl's red skirt and hat, blue shawl, and the yellow planks of the deck.  The methodical execution of this geometrical design is closer to Prendergast's signature sophisticated style than the spontaneous and fluid brushwork normally associated with monotypes.

  Unlike many of Prendergast's monotypes, this one does not feature a painted line border framing the image.  Instead, the artist apparently used a straight edge, possibly tape, to contain paint along the edges and clearly define the image.  At the right, the precisely drawn edge is disturbed by marks that may have been made by the artist's fingertips during printing.  Prendergast inscribed his vertical monogram on the matrix, at the lower right.   Prendergast either sold or gave Woman on Ship Deck to his friend, the artist Daphne Dunbar, who also owned the first pull of Skipping Rope (Collection Paul Mellon, CR 1609), whose cognate Skipping Rope (TF 1992.105, CR 1610) is in the Terra Foundation collection. For more information, see Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné (1990), to which the CR numbers for the monotypes noted above refer.

Maurice Prendergast, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts (organizer). Venues: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, May 31–September 2, 1990; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, October 6–December 16, 1990. [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.

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.

A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 16, 2002–February 16, 2003 (on exhibit extended run: November 2, 2002–March 2, 2003).

Rhys, Hedley Howell. Maurice Prendergast: The Sources and Development of His Style. PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1952. Text p. 192 (as Girl at Ship's Rail).

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. 1586, p. 580; ill. no. 1586, p. 580 (black & white), pl. 5, p. 112 (color).

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. Text pp. 42, 189 (checklist); pl. 111, p. 156 (color).