In the Park

Maurice Prendergast's In the Park (CR 1642) depicts two girls at rest, one sitting and one standing with her back to the viewer, under the shade of a large tree.  In the background, boys and girls run in the meadow, watched by their guardians, whose black dresses blend into the dark green surface.  The swirling movements of the girls' white dresses suggest a flock of white birds in flight.  While the blurry image is difficult to interpret, the overall effect is one of motion, countered by the static group in the foreground.

Notwithstanding the rich deep green of the background, this monotype is a cognate, or second impression, created from the original matrix.  As a result, in this impression with its necessarily thinner pigment, forms appear less distinct. The surface is noticeably reticulated or grainy, the result of using printer's ink rather than oil paint to create the image.  Pinholes in the four corners of the sheet, accompanied by a very faint matrix mark, suggest that Prendergast used a hand roller to create this impression.  As with most of his monotypes, a line border frames the image.  In this second print the artist returned to the matrix and inscribed his initials in the lower right corner with a stylus or the end of his brush, while for the first impression he wrote his signature and date on the matrix.  This difference seems to indicate that the artist reworked the pigment on the matrix between printing the two impressions, a manipulation that might be clearer in a side-by-side comparison. 

Until 1896, Prendergast lived in Roxbury, a suburb of Boston, close to Franklin Park, the largest of the string of green space designed in the late nineteenth century by Frederick Law Olmsted as part of Boston's "Emerald Necklace" of parks. This monotype is one of several in the series "Children at Play" that the artist created around 1895.  Many are set in Franklin Park, among them Spring in Franklin Park (TF 1992.106, CR 1646), Children at Play (TF 1992.75, CR 1653), and three entitled The Breezy Common (TF 1992.72, CR 1661; TF 1992.73, CR 1657; and TF 1992.74, CR 1658). 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, C. W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, New York, New York, December 8–31, 1936 (perhaps as no. 26).

[possibly exhibited] Special Exhibition of Monotypes by Maurice Brazil Prendergast, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., March 28–May 9, 1937 (perhaps as no. 6).

[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. 119). [exh. cat.]

[possibly exhibited] 50 Ans d'Art aux États-Unis: Collections du Museum of Modern Art de New York, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York (organizer). Venue: Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, France, April–May 1955 (circulated; perhaps as no. 146). [exh. cat.]

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.]

Gray, Cleve. "Summertime USA: A Print Review." Art in America 52:3 (June 1964): 106. Ill. p. 106 (black & white).

Langdale, Cecily. The Monotypes of Maurice Prendergast. (exh. cat., Davis & Long Company). New York: Davis & Long Company, 1979. Ill. no. 95, p. 131 (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. 25, 32, 37, 140; ill. no. 47, p. 141 (color).

Spencer, Harold. "On Some Works by Maurice Prendergast." Bulletin 1985: William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut 13 (1985). Text p. 29.

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. 1642, p. 595; ill. no. 1642, p. 595 (black & white).