Dress Rehearsal

A tour de force of motion by Maurice Prendergast, Dress Rehearsal (CR 1601) captures dancers as they dizzily twirl in place. The artist's use of subtractive wiping and blotting techniques to denote both the bodies and costumes achieved rhythms that suggest the spinning dancers.  A single vertical pole placed at the center of the dance studio stabilizes the whirl of circular forms and marks spatial recession into the tipped-up background. Strategically placed brown straight lines—the pole, the back wall windows, and the image's surrounding border—accentuate the contrasting motion of the whirling dancers. In the border along the lower edge of the plate, the artist used a stylus or the sharp end of a brush to sign and title the work "Drees Rehersal." (i.e. Dress Rehearsal). Prendergast is known to have made only one other work on the theme of dancers, his monotype The Rehearsal (circa 1895; Museum of Modern Art, New York, CR 1602).

  Dress Rehearsal shares its theme of performance with three other monotypes in the Terra Collection: Circus Scene with Horse (TF 1992.78, CR 1590), Bareback Rider (TF 1992.70, CR 1593), and Nouveau Cirque (TF 1992.95, CR 1594). While many of Prendergast's works allude subtly to aspects of social performance in such urban settings as public parks and crowded thoroughfares, these four monotypes represent rare instances in which the artist addressed the theme explicitly. 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, Kraushaar Galleries, New York, New York, February 18–March 23, 1952.

Maurice Prendergast, 1859–1924, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, October 26–December 4, 1960; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, December 29, 1960–February 5, 1961; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, February 21–April 2, 1961; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, April 22–June 3, 1961; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, June 20–July 30, 1961. [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.]

The Work of Charles and Maurice Prendergast, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: 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). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 26, 1996–January 5, 1997.

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 2004.

Rhys, Hedley Howell. Maurice Prendergast, 1859–1924. (exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts). Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Harvard University Press, 1960. Cat. no. 134, p. 105 (checklist); ill. no. 134, p. 153 (black & white).

Art in America 57:5 (September–October 1969): 16F. Ill. p. 16F (black & white).

Art in America 57:6 (November–December, 1969): 22. Ill. p. 22 (black & white).

Langdale, Cecily. The Monotypes of Maurice Prendergast. (exh. cat., Davis & Long Company). New York: Davis & Long Company, 1979. Text p. 8; ill. no. 43, p. 75 (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, 26, 31, 88; ill. no. 21, p. 89 (color).

Stevens, Elisabeth. "Monotypes Have Lyricism." Baltimore Sun (March 8, 1985): B, 1, 4. Text p. 4B; ill. p. 1B.

Heimann, Nora M. "Singular Impressions." Arts [The Magazine for Members of The Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts] 9:12 (December 1986): 20–23. Text p. 22.

Sozanski, Edward. "Delicate Images in Monotypes by Prendergast." Philadelphia Inquirer (December 10, 1987): C:7. Text p. 7.

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. 1601, pp. 584–85; ill. no. 1601, p. 584 (black & white).