Crescent Beach

Crescent Beach, a monotype by Maurice Prendergast, pictures a girl seated on a bench overlooking a stretch of curving shoreline. The beach terminates in a vista of buildings with lighted windows, suggesting a twilight setting. Dressed in a bright red dress and hat, the girl sits in profile, gazing off, perhaps toward the open ocean. Below her, Crescent Beach is packed with people strolling, including women in white dresses and men in black. The diagonal of the bench, the horizontal wooden railings, the dramatic curve of the beach, and the gabled roofs in the distance create a powerful sense of geometry that balances the monotype's delicate color and surface effects. This work can be included in the “Solitary Woman” series even though the protagonist is quite young.

Crescent Beach is closely related to a smaller watercolor painting in Prendergast's "Boston Water-color Sketchbook" (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, CR 1478). The spontaneous appearance of the watercolor found in a 7 by 7-inch sketchbook appears to be an outdoor sketch that is focused on the girl. The monotype, on the other hand, has a more precise composition layout suggesting it was completed in the studio. Prendergast altered the figure of the girl from the sketch to the monotype, making her part of the composition's design and not the subject. Intriguingly, when the two works of art are compared side by side and the pier's railings are aligned, the breadth of the crescent beaches portrayed matches exactly.

Crescent Beach (now Revere Beach) faces Massachusetts Bay, and was a popular bathing spot in the 1880s and 1890s when it became America’s first public beach managed by a government authority. The beach was transformed at the turn of the century into a destination for fun-lovers with numerous restaurants and amusements. Located five miles north of Boston, both the Blue Line Narrow Gauge Railroad and a ferry from East Boston could transport large crowds to enjoy a summer holiday at the shore. 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. 21).

[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. 91). [exh. cat.]

[possibly exhibited] Special Exhibition of Watercolors and Monotypes by Maurice B. Prendergast, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., October 18–November 16, 1939 (perhaps as no. 25).

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.

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.

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

Langdale, Cecily. The Monotypes of Maurice Prendergast. (exh. cat., Davis & Long Company). New York: Davis & Long Company, 1979. Text p. 12; ill. no. 45 (black & white).

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. 33, 34, 64, 90; ill. no. 22 (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. 1644, p. 596; ill. no. 1644, p. 596 (black & white).

Clark, Carol. American Drawings and Watercolors in the Robert Lehman Collection. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992. Fig. 4.8, p. 82.