Pic-Nic Prospect Park, Brooklyn

In a sunny clearing in the woods, a party of well-dressed school-girls gathers for an outdoor lunch in Samuel S. Carr's Pic-Nic, Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Waiting figures are scattered amidst the trees, and in the distance on either side several children enjoy swings as others look on. The few adults present, all at a distance, seem accessories to the children's pleasures on this summertime outing. The studied isolation of several mostly older girls who stand by trees in the middle ground lends a subtle note of disquiet, however, as if they are abandoning the childish interests of the younger children gathered in the distance; indeed, the curvaceous, shadowed figure at left who turns her back on the picnic holds a fan in a gesture of precocious flirtation. The quiet foreground is a study in the effects of sunlight penetrating the dense foliage in pools that highlight the irregular patches of grass and one fallen branch.

Carr specialized in scenes of such simple leisure activities among the residents of Brooklyn, New York, where he spent his entire career in a studio located near Prospect Park. In addition to beach scenes, of which the Terra Foundation's Small Yacht Racing (1992.23) is an example, Carr painted numerous views of the park, a 526-acre urban oasis completed in 1868 from designs by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the creators of Manhattan's Central Park. Among its naturalistic features, Prospect Park includes forested hills that lend it the character of a rustic retreat, and in the nineteenth century it was the setting for hundreds of official Sunday school picnics. Placing the picnic itself at a distance through the trees, Carr emphasizes the rural character of the densely wooded setting: the picnic seems to take place not in an urban oasis in the midst of America's second-largest city, but in a woodland interior like the setting for a similar image of children at play, Picnic Party in the Woods (TF1994.1) by Carr's contemporary, painter John George Brown.

In the prosperity of the so-called Gilded Age of the 1870s and 1880s, many artists began to depict the life of the growing American urban middle class, but they rarely directly pictured the city, long regarded as an inherently unaesthetic subject. With their picturesque natural elements, the large parks beginning to be laid out in the 1860s in American cities offered artists a cautious entrée into new urban themes. Only three years after Carr painted Pic-Nic, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, the younger artist William Merritt Chase began to depict Prospect and other Brooklyn and Manhattan parks in a modern manner informed by the new style and subjects of contemporary European art. Focusing rather on the theme of idyllic childhood, Carr used a more conventional artistic vocabulary to picture an ordinary scene of Brooklyn life in an accessible if somewhat naïve manner.

Brooklyn's Bounty: Natural Splendor and Domestic Opulence, Museum of the Borough of Brooklyn at Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, New York (organizer). Venue: Museum of the Borough of Brooklyn at Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, New York, April 26–May 16, 1985.

Nineteenth Century Genre Painting from The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, November 15, 1985–January 12, 1986.

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.]

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Life in 19th Century America, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 24–September 6, 1987.

An American Revelation: The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 28–October 1, 1988.

Visions of a Nation: Exploring Identity through American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, August 10, 1996–January 12, 1997.

Paris-New York, aller-retour. Une Modernité américaine en formation, 1875–1940. Oeuvres des collections de la Terra Foundation for the Arts et des Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens (Paris-New York, Roundtrip. American Modernism in the Making, 1875–1940. Works from the Terra Foundation for the Arts and the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, September 15–November 30, 2002. [exh. cat.]

Le Temps des loisirs : peintures américaines (At Leisure: American Paintings), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, July 15–October 31, 2007.

Le Temps des loisirs : peintures américaines (At Leisure: American Paintings), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2008.

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-55, p. 164 (color).

Gallatti, Barbara. William Merritt Chase: Modern American Landscapes, 1886–1890. (exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum of Art). New York: Brooklyn Museum of Art in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1999. Text p. 64; fig. 19, p. 64 (black & white).