Washington's Birthday-Fifth Avenue & 23rd Street

Childe Hassam built a successful career by painting picturesque street scenes of Boston (TF 1992.39), Paris (TF 1993.20), and New York City (TF 1999.66). Regarded as a masterpiece among printed American city views, Washington's Birthday-Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street features New York's noted thoroughfare flanked by multistoried buildings decorated with vibrant tiers of flags in celebration of the national holiday honoring the February 22 birthday of George Washington, first president of the United States. Deftly placed short strokes convey the flickering movement of flags in the breeze and the bustling crowds and traffic heading down Fifth Avenue towards the Flatiron Building, Manhattan's first skyscraper, which looms phantomlike in the background.

In the wave of patriotism that swept the United States during World War I, New Yorkers frequently demonstrated their support for the Allied war effort by impressive flag displays and parades on prominent streets, particularly Fifth Avenue. This etching heralded Hassam's important series of flag paintings and prints that the artist began several months later in response to the increasing profusion of patriotic home-front displays that took place between May 1916 and the armistice of 1918. 

Ville et campagne: les artistes américains, 1870–1920 (The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–July 15, 1999. [exh. cat.]

Figures and Forms: Selections from the Terra Foundation for the Arts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 9–July 9, 2000.

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.

Paris-New York, aller-retour. Une Modernité américaine en formation, 1875–1940. Oeuvres des collections de la Terra Foundation for the Arts et des Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens (Paris-New York, Roundtrip. American Modernism in the Making, 1875–1940. Works from the Terra Foundation for the Arts and the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, September 15–November 30, 2002. [exh. cat.]

Cortissoz, Royal and the Leonard Clayton Gallery. Catalogue of the Etchings and Dry-Points of Childe Hassam, N.A. San Francisco, California: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 1989. No. 68, p. 57; ill. p. 58.

Fort, Ilene Susan. The Flag Paintings of Childe Hassam. (exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art). Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988. Fig. 1, p. 9.

Adelson, Warren, Jay E. Cantor, and William H. Gerdts. Childe Hassam: An American Impressionist. (exh. cat., Adelson Galleries, Inc.). New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1999. Plates 226–28, 232 (examples of flag paintings).

Griffith, Bronwyn and Lee A. Vedder. Paris-New York, aller-retour. (New York-Paris Round Trip). (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 35 (French), 92 (English), 107 (checklist); fig. 13, p. 34 (color). [specific reference to Terra print]

Weinberg, H. Barbara. Childe Hassam: American Impressionist. (exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004. Text p. 275; fig. 18, p. 16 (color).