Three Sketches: Springtime, Lady in Red, Little Girl in Red

Three Sketches: Springtime, Lady in Red, Little Girl in Red (CR 1654) is an excellent example of Maurice Prendergast's experimental practices with his colored prints, as he called his monotypes, as well as his playful nature.  He combined two or, perhaps, three separate matrices to produce this single sheet, which insightfully includes three of his predominant themes.  The artist's frequent emulation of a Japanese woodblock aesthetic is illustrated in Springtime, which is the second pull of a monotype, or cognate, with the same title (Private Collection, CR 1655).  Lady in Red exemplifies a style in which the artist created a single figure of a fashionably dressed woman set within a colored background, most often associated with monotypes after 1900 such as Young Woman with Muff (TF 1992.121, CR 1731).  Little Girl in Red, which may be either a monotype made from an individual matrix or a drawing made directly on the sheet, is one of several images by Prendergast of the female figure isolated against the unprinted white of the paper.  A related monotype in the Terra Foundation collection, Lady with Handkerchief (TF 1992.90, CR 1571), portrays a woman against a pristine background.  Little Girl in Red suggestively portrays one of the girls in Springtime, who has stepped out of the picture to go home from her afternoon of play.  The combination of these images is an essay on a girl becoming a woman.

Prendergast is known to have combined several images on a single sheet in only two other instances: Six Sketches of Ladies (collection of Katharine Sturgis, CR 1583), which dates to between 1891 and 1894, as well as Lady with Handkerchief and Lady with Umbrella (TF 1999.115, CR 1572), printed on a single sheet that was later divided.  In the case of Three Sketches, the order in which the three images were printed is difficult to determine.  The inclusion of the cognate Springtime further complicates the issue.  Prendergast may have used two or three separate matrices to create this ensemble of images, requiring drying time between printings and careful planning.

Springtime relates to two series within the monotypes: "Children at Play," such as Spring in Franklin Park (TF 1992.106, CR 1646), and "Solitary Woman," including Lady in Hat and Green Cape (TF 1992.88, CR 1733). For more information, see Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné (1990), to which the CR numbers for the monotypes noted above refer.

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.]

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. 31, 80; ill. no. 17, p. 81 (color).

Richard, Paul. "Sweetness and Night: Maurice Prendergast at the National Gallery." Washington Post (January 25, 1985): C: 1, 6. Text p. C.

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. 1654, p. 599; ill. no. 1654, p. 599 (black & white).