White Phlox

A riot of white and purple blossoms dominates the foreground of Hugh Breckenridge's White Phlox. Undoubtedly a view of the luxuriant garden at his home in the Philadelphia suburb of Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, the image is confined: beyond the dense screen of flowers pressed up against the picture plane, a garden path and the delicate lines of a fence are nearly consumed by more distant foliage and flowers that fill the view. The scene is rendered in short strokes of thick pigment to suggest the overall textured effect of a scene composed largely of petals and leaves. In what he termed his "tapestry painting," Breckenridge balanced the representation of nature against the creation of a purely formal patterned design on the flat surface of the canvas. Eventually, beginning in the early 1920s, the artist created fully abstract works juxtaposing planes of rich color inspired by the tints of flowers.

White Phlox typifies Breckenridge's penchant for floral and garden subjects and his wholehearted embrace of the techniques of impressionism, notably the use of quickly applied brushstrokes of pure, unblended color. He had come under its influence during the year he spent in Paris, in 1892, at a time when many American artists working in France were experimenting with its still-radical approach to capturing optical phenomena by means of direct, on-site painting. As vehicles for light and color and as pleasing subjects in their own right, floral and garden themes were widely popular among impressionist painters, many of whom created their own gardens in which to paint. Breckenridge's garden served as the setting for summertime instruction in plein-air (or outdoor) painting at the Darby Summer School of Painting, through which he encouraged the rise of impressionist landscape painting in eastern Pennsylvania in the early years of the twentieth century.

Breckenridge painted many kinds of flowers, but phlox was a favorite. Common to the Delaware Valley region, it evidently was a dominant species in the artist's garden, for he nicknamed his home "Phloxdale." The flower enjoyed a revival in the late-nineteenth century, when such "old-fashioned" species were encouraged to run riot in American gardens designed to celebrate naturalism and earlier, simpler times.

107th Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 21–February 24, 1907, no. 423 (as Phlox).

Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1907.

Special One-Man Exhibition, New York, November 1907.

Special One-Man Exhibition, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, December 1907.

Special One-Man Exhibition, City Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri, February 1908.

Special One-Man Exhibition, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Buffalo, New York, March 1908.

Special One-Man Exhibition, Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, Indiana, March 1908.

Second Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Art, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1908.

Exhibition, West Chester Art Club, West Chester, Pennsylvania, 1909.

Exhibition, Alaska-Yukon Exhibition, 1909.

Exhibition, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1910.

Baltimore, Maryland, 1911.

Special One-Man Exhibition, St. Botolph Club, Boston, Massachusetts, 1912.

Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, New York, 1913.

Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, California, 1915-16.

Trask Exhibition, San Diego, California, 1916.

Wunderly, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, c. 1916-19.

Exhibition, Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, 1919.

Retrospective Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1934.

Exhibition, University of Virginia Museum of Art, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1936.

Visions of Home: American Impressionist Landscapes Depicting Suburban Leisure and Country Comfort, The Trout Gallery, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania (organizer). Venues: The Trout Gallery, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, March 17–June 14, 1997; The Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut, June 27–September 28, 1997. [exh. cat.]

The American Impressionists in the Garden, Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee (organiser). Venues: Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee, March 13–September 6, 2010; Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida, September 24, 2010–January 3, 2011; Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio, February 18–May 15, 2011. [exh. cat.]

The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887–1920, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (organizer). Venue: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 13–May 24, 2015; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, June 14–September 6, 2015; Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, October 3, 2015–January 3, 2016. [exh. cat.]

Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas , The New York Botanical Garden, New York, New York (organizer). Venue: The New York Botanical Garden, New York, New York, May 14–September 11, 2016; Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, Virginia, February 18–May 14, 2017 (as American Impressionism in the Garden). [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]

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. 81; fig. 77, p. 81 (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. 81; fig. 77, p. 81 (black & white).

Peters, Lisa N. Visions of Home: American Impressionist Images of Suburban Leisure and Country Comfort. (exh. cat., Trout Gallery). Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1997. Text p. 138; ill. p. 139 (color).

Hill, May Brawley. The American Impressionists in the Garden. (ex. cat., Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art, Nashville, Tenessee). Nashville: Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art and Vanderbilt University Press, 2010. Text pp. 21, 119 (checklist); ill. pl. 36, pp. 100–101 (color).

The American Impressionists in the Garden, American Art Review (April 2010): 82–91, 126–128. Ill. p. 85 (color).Anna O. Marley, ed. The Artist's Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement. (exh. cat. Pennsylvania Academy of FIne Arts). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press in association with Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 2015. Text pp. 20-21; ill. pl. 180 (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.  Ill. p. 156 (detail); Pl. 87, p. 157 (color).