Sunny Day at the Beach

Five young women, all bearing brightly colored parasols against the strong glare of sunlight, dominate Maurice Prendergast's Sunny Day at the Beach. Behind them, at the water's edge, more figures promenade or arrange their hair or clothes; in the distance, sailboats are visible under a sky indicated by three uneven bands of light and dark blues. Ranged across the picture's space in two interwoven lines, the figures in their varied colors and poses provide decorative rhythm and contrast. They are roughly outlined in black, with color and pattern enlivening their dresses and parasols but little attention to facial features, and the activity engaging the shadowy figure kneeling at the lower right is unspecified. With its expressive effect of rapid creation, the work suggests the fleeting pleasures of vacationing youth.

From early in his career, Prendergast had specialized in images of outdoor leisure filled with crowds of colorfully dressed figures, often against the backdrop of the sea. In the first decade of the twentieth century, under the influence both of contemporary European artists and of ancient art, he began to focus more closely on his figures, enlarging them in relation to the setting without further individualizing them through facial features and expressions. As anticipated in his Evening on a Pleasure Boat (TF 1999.110), their casually rendered forms, spread across the painting's surface, became elements in arrangements guided by abstract principles of design.

Prendergast had long combined watercolor, a translucent medium, with the opaque water-based paint known as gouache, and pastel, an oily chalk drawing medium notable for its saturated color. In contrast to the static surfaces and solid forms of pure pastel images by such fellow progressive artists as Arthur Dove, for example his A Walk: Poplars (TF 1999.47), Prendergast in this work accommodated pastel to the effect of rapid execution so characteristic of watercolor painting and so appropriate for capturing the evanescence of his subject. Notwithstanding its appearance of casual creation, however, Sunny Day at the Beach reveals the artist's deliberate process of composition. Traces of graphite visible beneath the pastel and watercolor indicate his preliminary sketching of general forms. Prendergast appears to have first painted much of the image in watercolor, which forms the foundation of the setting and figures, reinforced the outlines of the forms in black pastel, and finally selectively layered colored pastel over the watercolor.

A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 21–June 21, 1987. [exh. cat.]

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Life in 19th Century America, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 24–September 6, 1987.

The Work of Charles and Maurice Prendergast, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 16–April 21, 1991.

American Treasures: Chase, Whistler and the Prendergasts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 26, 1996–January 5, 1997.

A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 16, 2002–February 16, 2003 (on exhibit extended run: November 2, 2002–March 2, 2003).

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 2003.

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-123, p. 232 (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. 1303, p. 525; ill. no. 1303, p. 525 (black & white).