Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

Childe Hassam’s Commonwealth Avenue, Boston is a view looking northeast along the main thoroughfare of Back Bay toward the public garden adjacent to Boston Common, the old city’s major park. The composition is dominated by the steeply receding diagonal of the street, echoed by a row of elm trees in early-autumnal tints. Rising above them to provide vertical counterpoint are the steeples of two city churches, the tall, light stone Romanesque-style First Baptist Church, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886) in 1871, and the more distant spire of the Church of the Covenant, erected only a few years before from a design by Richard Upjohn (1802–1878). In the near distance, the figures of a promenading woman and child and several horse-drawn carriages lend movement and a sense of scale to the scene. Objects, particularly the trees, are rendered in the bright color and broken brushwork of impressionism, the painting of everyday subjects in terms of color and light to suggest movement and transience as reflections of immediate experience.

By 1892, Hassam was recognized as a pioneer in the depiction of city subjects as well as in the use of an impressionist style. Earlier, he had painted scenes of streets in Paris, of which the Terra Foundation’s  Une Averse—Rue Bonaparte (1993.20) is an example, and then embraced New York as his subject. In Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, the artist revisited not only his native city but the very setting—Boston’s parks and elegant boulevards—in which he had first emerged as a painter in the previous decade. But he had abandoned his early reliance on the effects of twilight or rain and a complementary muted palette (range of colors) in favor of the brighter light and color of impressionism, modified to serve as a means of representing objects rather than dissolving them into flecks of brightly colored paint.

Back Bay was developed beginning in the mid-nineteenth century on landfill in what had been a marshy wasteland. By 1890 it was upper-crust Boston’s new residential neighborhood of choice, a region of elegant townhouses in a rational grid layout that contrasted to the medieval labyrinth of the city’s established quarters. Hassam played on contemporary comparisons between Back Bay and Paris, which had been similarly transformed by Baron Georges Haussman (1809–1891) between 1858 and 1870. While rendering familiar local landmarks, he painted Back Bay as he often had portrayed Haussmann’s Paris, emphasizing the impressive length and breadth of its straight streets (underscored by a lofty vantage point), the gentility of its residents, and its atmosphere of refinement and ease. Indeed, the unaccompanied woman and child in the foreground signal the safety of the streets of Back Bay, a theme already suggested by the composition’s evocation of the region’s orderly physical arrangement. Hassam’s view of Back Bay thus corresponds with his depictions of other cities, which capture an impression of everyday experience while ignoring the grimmer social and physical aspects of modern urban life.

Exhibition and Sale of Oil Paintings and Watercolor and Pastel Drawings by Childe Hassam, Doll & Richards, Boston, Massachusetts, 1891, no. 15 (possibly exhibited as Commonwealth Avenue).

American Impressionism, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (organizer). Venues: Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, January 3–March 2, 1980; The Frederick S. Wight Gallery, University of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, March 9–May 4, 1980; Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, May 16–June 22, 1980; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts, July 1–August 31, 1980. [exh. cat.]

Life in 19th Century America, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, September 11–November 1, 1981. [exh. cat.]

Masterworks in American Art from the Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, April 27–September 12, 1985. 

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: Americans at Home and Abroad, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 6–29, 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.

American Impressionism: a New Vision, 1880-1900" (Une nouvelle lumière : les américains face à l’impressionnisme"/ "Impresionismo Americano) (French & Spanish titles), Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, Giverny and the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (organizers). Venues:, Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, Giverny, France, March 28–June 29, 2014, Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, July 19–October 19, 2014; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain, November 4, 2014–February 1, 2015. [exh. cat.]

Collection Cameo. Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 1989.

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.

Selected Works from the Collections: Two Hundred Years of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 12–August 27, 1997.

Ville et campagne: les artistes américains, 1870–1920 (The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–July 15, 1999; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 10, 1999–May 7, 2000 (in modified form). [exh. cat.]

Héroïque et le quotidien: les artistes américains, 1820–1920 (The Extraordinary and the Everyday: American Perspectives, 1820–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–November 30, 2001. [exh. cat.]

Childe Hassam (1859–1935): Transatlantic Impressions, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 16–April 28, 2002.

Artistic Independence in 1898: The Ten American Painters, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 4–July 21, 2002.

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).

American Classics from the Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 14–June 15, 2003.

Copley to Cassatt: Masterworks from the Terra Collection, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut and Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, September 5–December 7, 2003.

Highlights from the Collection of the Terra Foundation for the Arts, Union League Club of Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Union League Club of Chicago, Illinois, July 20–October 31, 2004. [exh. cat.]

Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, NY and Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, IL (organizers). Venues: National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China, February 9-April 5, 2007; Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, China, April 30-June 30, 2007; Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China, April 30-June 30, 2007 (Shanghai presentations ran concurrently); The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia, July 23–September 9, 2007; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain, October 15, 2007–April 27, 2008. [exh. cat.]

American Impressionism: a New Vision, 1880–1900 (L'Impressionnisme et les Américains/ Impresionismo Americano (French & Spanish titles), Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, Giverny, France and the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (organizers). Venues: Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, Giverny, France, March 28–June 29, 2014; Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, July 19–October 19, 2014; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain, November 4, 2014–February 1, 2015. [exh. cat.]

The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910: The Terra Collection in Context (L’atelier de la Nature, 1860-1910. Invitation à la Terra Collection). Terra Foundation for American Art with the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny (organizers). Venue: Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, France, September 12, 2020–January 3, 2021. [exh. cat. in French]

  In the Streets: Modern Life and Urban Experiences in the Art of the United States, 1893-1976 (Pelas ruas: vida moderna e experiências urbanas na arte dos Estados Unidos, 1893–1976). Terra Foundation for American Art and Pinacoteca de São Paulo (organizers). Venue: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, August 27, 2022–January 30, 2023. [exh. cat.]

Gerdts, William H. American Impressionism. (exh. cat., Henry Art Gallery). Seattle, Washington: Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, 1980. Text p. 131 (checklist); ill. p. 57 (color)

Robinson, Raymond H. “The Families of Commonwealth Avenue.” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 93 (1981): 80–94. Text p. 93.

Sokol, David M. Life in 19th Century America. (exh. cat. Terra Museum of American Art). Evanston, Illinois: Terra Museum of American Art, 1981. Text p. 46; ill. no. 83, p. 45 (color).

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-127, p. 236 (color).

Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Frederick Childe Hassam. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 1989. Ill. (black & white).

Gerdts, William H. et al. Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text pp. 70–71; fig. 68, p. 70 (black and white).

Gerdts, William H. et al. Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text pp. 70–71; fig. 68, p. 70 (black and white).

Cartwright, Derrick R. The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1999. Text pp. 15, 24; fig. 9, p. 15 (black and white).

Cartwright, Derrick R. Ville et campagne: les artistes américains, 1870–1920. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1999. Text pp. 15, 24; fig. 9, p. 15 (black and white).

Cartwright, Derrick R. The Extraordinary and the Everyday: American Perspectives, 1820–1920. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2001. Text p. 23 (checklist).

Cartwright, Derrick R. L'Héroïque et le quotidian: les artistes américains, 1820–1920. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2001. Text p. 23 (checklist).

Highlights from the Collection of the Terra Foundation for the Arts. (exh. cat., Union League Club of Chicago). Chicago, Illinois: Union League Club of Chicago, 2004. Text; ill. (color).

Davidson, Susan, ed. Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation. (exh. cat., The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia). New York, NY: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Chicago, IL: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. Russian edition. Ill. p. 92 (color).

Davidson, Susan, ed. Art in the USA: 300 años de innovación. (exh. cat., Guggenheim Museum Bilbao). New York, NY: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Chicago, IL: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. Ill. p. 124 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text pp. 117–119; fig. 4, p. 118 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine and Valerie Reis. The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910: The Terra Collection in Context. (exh. cat, Terra Foundation for American Art with the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny). Paris, France: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2020. Text p. 148; Pl. 81, p. 150 (color).

Piccoli, Valéria, Fernanda Pitta, and Taylor Poulin. Pelas ruas: vida moderna e experiências urbanas na arte dos Estados Unidos, 1893-1976. (exh. cat., Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and Terra Foundation for American Art). São Paulo, Brazil: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2022. Pl. p. 21 (color).