Telegraph Hill

Women and girls holding brightly colored parasols promenade on the lawn overlooking an expanse of ocean in Maurice Prendergast's Telegraph Hill.  The figures wear the tight-waisted dresses and large hats of 1890s fashion, but the ships distributed over the water's surface in the distance are the full-rigged sailing ships of an earlier era. Like the women, their parasols, and a bright red flag fluttering from the top of a tall post on the left, the vessels are carefully placed for compositional balance. As in Franklin Park, Boston (TF 1999.112), another oil-on-panel painting from this period, Prendergast distributed these forms across a shallow space whose high horizon and tipped-up perspective emphasize the flatness of the painting surface, further underscored by the broad handling of pigment. The artist's purely decorative approach to painting extends to the fantastic pink sea and green sky.

Telegraph Hill in South Boston, the most conspicuous point in the elevated area called Dorchester Heights, commands an impressive view of Dorchester Bay, part of Boston Harbor.  During the Revolutionary War, American fortifications there ultimately secured Boston from British military control, and during the War of 1812 American troops were again stationed on Dorchester Heights. At its summit, Thomas Park was laid out in the mid-nineteenth century, and in the following three decades the surrounding area was developed as a residential quarter for prosperous Bostonians.

Although Telegraph Hill was well known as an important historical site, Prendergast preferred to show it as a setting for genteel leisure. Here and in his many views of Boston's Franklin Park also painted in the mid-1890s (TF 1999.111, TF 1999.112, TF 1999.113), the artist focused on women and children and the pleasures of a sunny day's outing, while abstracting forms and setting in a challenge to the pictorial conventions of "objective" representation. Prendergast investigated the subject of Telegraph Hill not only in this oil painting but also in the closely related monotype Telegraph Hill (TF 1992.110) and its counterproof, Telegraph Hill I (1992.111), which are both the same size as the canvas. As with his Franklin Park images, Prendergast used a range of media to explore a single subject.

Telegraph Hill was made on one side of a panel that bears on the other a painting titled Promenade with Parasols (TF 1999.119b). Separated in the mid-1980s, the two paintings are now considered independent works of art.

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.]

Attitudes Towards Nature, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 30, 1995–April 21, 1996.

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Art and Craft, The Work of Charles and Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 10–September 16, 2001.

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).

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 p. 13; fig. 10, p. 27 (black & white).

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-115, p. 224 (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. 23, p. 217; ill. no. 23, p. 217 (black & white).