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Artist or Maker: Maurice Prendergast (1859-1924)

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Provenance: The artist.
Charles Prendergast, 1924.
C.W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, New York, 1931.
Sidney Levyne, 1957.
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, 1978.
Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, 1970.
Private southwestern collection, acquired from the above, 1971.
Sotheby's, New York, 1 December 1994, lot 35.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.

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Exhibited: New York, C.W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, Exhibition of Paintings and Watercolors by Maurice Prendergast , October-November 1930, no. 8.
Toronto, Canada, Art Gallery of Toronto, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Paintings by Maurice Prendergast , October 1931, no. 21.
New York, C.W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, Maurice Prendergast , April 1933, no. 3.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Maurice Prendergast Memorial Exhibition , February-March 1934, no. 35.
Houston, Texas, Museum of Fine Arts, Sunlight on Leaves: The Impressionist Tradition , June-August 1981, no. 29.
Winter Park, Florida, Rollins College, Cornell Fine Arts Museum, The Independents: The Ashcan School & Their Circle From Florida Collections , March 9-May 5, 1996, no. 44.
New York, Hollis Taggart Galleries, The Color of Modernism: The American Fauves , April 29-July 26, 1997, no. 64.
St. Petersburg, Florida, Museum of Fine Arts, In the American Spirit: Realism and Impressionism from the Lawrence Collection , March 21-June 13, 1999, no. 32.

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Notes: Property from the Samuel B. and Marion W. Lawrence Collection

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Buck's Harbor belongs to an important body of work executed after Maurice Prendergast's pivotal trip to Paris in 1907. Painted circa 1907 to 1910, the present work exhibits Prendergast's predilection for capturing glimpses of picturesque crowds leisurely strolling along the tranquil New England shoreline expressed in a modern style uniquely his own.

Considered the first American to champion the art of Cezanne in America, Prendergast found profound inspiration in the work of the Post-Impressionist masters which, despite his self-taught background, played a significant role in his painting career from 1907 onward. Prendergast's works suggest an adaptation of several stylistic innovations of the more progressive European artists, particularly Cézanne, Matisse and Seurat. Prendergast, however, "never borrowed mannerism, he used only what he needed, and transformed what he borrowed into his own image." (C. Clark, N.M. Mathews and G. Owens, Maurice Brazil Prendergast and Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raissone , Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1990, p. 22) As a result, Prendergast developed an innovative distinctive and personal style that made him one of most modern artists working during this period.

Depicting mid-day strollers and picnickers along the Maine shoreline, Buck's Harbor poignantly illustrates Prendergast's particular approach to composition, color and brushwork. Keenly aware of the Post-Impressionist's aesthetic attitudes of composition and space, Prendergast uses an array of devices to emphasize the flatness of the surface, which in turn heighten the overall decorative effect. In the present work, Prendergast uses a method of banding and trellising whereby the artist stacks compositional elements in horizontal bands, which are interlocked by strong vertical forms. In Buck's Harbor , the crowd along the verdant shore line comprise the lower band of the painting, while the blue water peppered with sailboats suggests the middle band, and the light-filled sky remains the upper band. The three-band horizontality of the composition is broken by the verticality of prominent motifs such as the trees, standing figures and sails, which are placed in a frieze like manner across the work, serving to interlock the composition.

In addition to its purposeful arrangement of composition, Buck's Harbor is enhanced by the powerful use of color and a bold display of brushwork. The saturated green of the trees and landscape along with the crystalline blue of the sea and sky creates a backdrop from which emerges a resplendent display of contrasting yet brilliant color. This color scheme is applied in a variety of overlapping brushstrokes that are fluid, but tactile. In Buck's Harbor , these variations in brushwork and color are freely expressed an enhance the textural quality and jewel-like pattern of the work.

Prendergast's interest in the tactile properties of oil is evident in the heavily encrusted surfaces of his late paintings in which thickly applied layers of contrasting pigments create a brightly-hued, tapestried effect. The artist's color scheme is applied in a variety of brushstrokes, a departure from his earlier preference for consistent brushwork within a single picture. Milton Brown describes this change in technique, "The brushstrokes become larger and bolder and take on an abstract quality apart from the underlying forms they are supposed to define, moving in independent directions, and varying in size and shape. But, while obscuring and overriding those forms, they succeed in unifying the pictorial surface." ( Maurice Brazil Prendergast and Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné , p. 22) It is in these works that Prendergast achieves the most modern expression of his art.

Buck's Harbor illustrates the artist's lifelong interest in observing urbanity at rest as well as his passion for color and composition. Bringing together several of Prendergast's favored devices and tools, this extraordinary oil reveals the artist's highly personalized approach to subject and style.