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Dimensions: 20 by 24 in.

(50.8 by 60.7 cm)

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Provenance: PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF CHARLOTTE LAZARUS WITKIND AND RICHARD J. WITKIND

W.T. Cresmer, Glencoe, Illinois, until 1955
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York
Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Lazarus (acquired from the above)
By descent to the present owner

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Exhibited: New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Childe Hassam, February-March 1964, no. 25

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Notes: Childe Hassam was one of a number of American Impressionists who were drawn to the seaside village of Gloucester, where the picturesque harbor inspired some of the most serene and enduring images of turn-of-the-century America. In 1880 or 1881 Hassam visited Gloucester but it was not until the 1890s, following his return from his first European sojourn, that he devoted his summer months to spending time in a variety of towns and resorts along the New England coast. Determined to capture the modern life around him, Hassam was attracted to these locales for their purely American character. While the bustling activity of the docks initially inspired Hassam's canvases, the wide open vistas of sea had a profound effect on the aesthetic choices Hassam was soon making. Ulrich Hiesinger notes, "It was during this visit [of 1899] that Hassam began to envision the Gloucester landscape in a fundamentally new way, replacing fragmentary incidents and scenery with enduring realities expressed in sweeping panoramas of the harbor and town. These have come to be regarded as his quintessential Gloucester views, unrivalled for their breadth, complexity, and delicate atmospheric effect" (Childe Hassam, New York, 1994, p. 122). Referring to local artistic tastes of the time, Hassam stated, "The sort of atmosphere they like to see in a picture they couldn't breathe for two minutes. I like air that is breathable. They are fond of that rich brown tone in a painting. Well, I am not, because it is not true. To me, there is nothing so beautiful as truth. This blue that I see in the atmosphere is beautiful, because it is one of this conditions of this wonderful nature all about us. If you are looking toward any distant object, there will be between you and that object air, and the deeper or denser the volume of air, the bluer it will be" (Childe Hassam, p. 75). The distilled composition of Sailing on Calm Seas, Gloucester Harbor is the artistic embodiment of these ideas and Hassam's fully developed impressionistic style in which a uniform surface of shimmering brushstrokes conjures the pictorial effects of light and air.