Still Life with Apples and Vase

A shallow bowl and a basket both filled with apples, an empty vase, a pitcher holding a varied bouquet of flowers, and a potted plant are among the colorful objects sharing a crowded tabletop in Maurice Prendergast's Still Life with Apples and Vase. Three more apples fill the lower left corner of the image and the expanse of the table is varied by a crumpled white cloth that sets off the basket's red wicker-work, creating a variety of shapes, textures, and colors extending into the mottled skins of the apples, arranged to contrast their green, yellow, red, and orange tints. Even the table's bare surface across the middle third of the painting and the undefined background are varied by roughly painted strokes of color chosen more for decorative contrast than objective description. Animated by such vivid color and texture, Prendergast's still life is anything but still.

Already renowned for his outdoor scenes of leisure filled with brightly dressed moving crowds, in the years around 1910 Prendergast turned to still life painting as he experimented with the formal properties of color and shape. During a brief trip to Paris in 1907 and again at the so-called Armory Show of 1913, which introduced European modernism to the American public, he was deeply influenced by the work of French painter Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). In this work Cézanne's influence may be evident, not only in Prendergast's choice of apples as subject matter, but in his attention to underlying compositional structure, with its deliberate arrangement of varied shapes and forms and its densely patterned decorated surface. While Prendergast's attraction to still life painting coincided with renewed attention to that genre among progressive early twentieth-century American artists, the painting of table-top arrangements of fruit, flowers, containers, and other inanimate objects has a venerable history in American art. Like Robert Spear Dunning's Still Life with Fruit (TF 1999.49), for example, Prendergast's painting juxtaposes the colors, forms, and textures of fruit and containers, but it also uses literal reality as a point of departure for an expressive, imaginative interpretation of the commonplace.

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.]

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.

Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Exhibition, 1916–1991, The Arts Club of Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: The Arts Club of Chicago, Illinois, May 11–June 26, 1992. [exh. cat.]

Regard sur Maurice Brazil Prendergast (Maurice Brazil Prendergast at a Glance), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 1993.

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.

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.

L'Amérique et les modernes, 1900–1950 (American Moderns, 1900–1950), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, July 25–October 31, 2000. [exh. cat.]

D'une colonie à une collection: le Musée d'Art Américain Giverny fête ses dix ans (From a Colony to a Collection: Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of the Musée d'Art Américain Giverny), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, March 30–June 16, 2002.

American Classics, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 13, 2003–February 8, 2004.

The Eight and American Modernisms, Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, and Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (organizers). Venues: New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, March 6–May 24, 2009; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 6–August 23, 2009. [exh. cat]

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-119, p. 228 (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. 313, p. 274; ill. no. 313, p. 274 (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 p. 96; fig. 97, p. 96 (black & 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 p. 96; fig. 97, p. 96 (black & white).

Southgate, M. Therese. "The Cover." The Journal of the American Medical Association 267:2 (January 8, 1992): 197. Text p. 197; ill. cover (color).

Southgate, M. Therese. "The Cover." The Journal of the American Medical Association Pakistan 4:5 (July 1992): 270. Text p. 270; ill. cover (color).

Wells, James M. The Arts Club of Chicago: Seventy-Fifth Anniversary, 1916–1991. (exh. cat., The Arts Club of Chicago). Chicago, Illinois: The Arts Club of Chicago, 1992. Text p. 16, 103; ill. (color).

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. American Moderns, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Pl. 26, p. 54 (color).

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. L'Amérique et les modernes, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Pl. 26, p. 54 (color).

Kennedy, Elizabeth et al. The Eight and American Modernisms. (exh. cat., New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut and Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2009. Text p. 175 (checklist); Ill. p. 119 (color).

Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA III: Covers and Essays from the Journal of the American Medical Association. Chicago, Illinois: American Medical Association, 2011. Text pp. 74, 204; ill. opposite p. 74 (color).