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signed "Edmund C. Tarbell," l.l.-oil on canvas 24 7/8 x 30 in. (63.2 x 76.2 cm.) PROVENANCE Dwight Blaney, Boston By descent through the family to the present owner EXHIBITED Boston, J. Eastman Chase's Gallery, "One-Man Show," March 1894, no. 6 New York, Society of American Artists, "17th Annual," 1896, no. 207 Boston, St. Botolph Club, "One-Man Show," Feb.-Mar. 1898, no. 5 New York, Montross Gallery, "One-Man Show," Feb. 1907 Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, "Edmund Charles Tarbell," Jan. 1908, no. 23 Boston, Copley Society, "One-Man Show," 1912 Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, "Edmund Charles Tarbell," Jan.-Feb. 1916, no. 20 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, "Special Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Frank W. Benson and the Late Edmund C. Tarbell," 1938, no. 168 Boston, Guild of Boston Artists, Feb. 1923, no. 3 Boston, Guild of Boston Artists, "Edmund Charles Tarbell," 1931, no. 3 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, "The Bostonians: Painters of an Elegant Age: 1870-1930," June-Sept. 1986, pp. 56-57; 138, no. 49, illus. (this exhibition traveled to Denver, The Denver Art Museum, Oct. 1986-Jan. 1987; Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Mar.-May 1987) LITERATURE P. J. Pierce, "Edmund C. Tarbell and the Boston School of Painting (1889-1980)," Hingham, Massachusetts, 1980, pp. 108-110; 206-207 RELATED LITERATURE P. J. Pierce, "The Ten," Concord, New Hampshire, 1976, pp. 115-131 W. H. Gerdts, "American Impressionism," New York, 1984, pp. 114-118 U. W. Hiesinger, "Impressionism in America: The Ten American Painters," Munich, 1991, pp. 244-245 Boston, in addition to New York, was a center for the development of American Impressionism and spawned a group of painters who had significant impact on this new aesthetic. These artists, after sojourns to England and France, particularly Giverny, returned to America, incorporating into their native context what they had learned abroad. Although many artists such as John Leslie Breck and Theodore Wendel were primarily landscape painters, Dr. William Gerdts attributes the success of the entire group to their predilection for the figure. (Gerdts, p. 114) The Boston School therefore became known for figure painting, and since most of these artists such as Edmund Tarbell were teachers, they also had substantial influence on the students who followed them. Tarbell and his closest friend and fellow artist Frank W. Benson established a lifetime association first as students and later as teachers at the Boston Museum School. Both artists left the Society of American Artists in 1897 and became founding members of "The Ten American Painters," a group formed to promote American art, to preserve high standards, and to oppose the commercialism which had crept into the Society's membership. The group consisted of the most renowned Impressionists of the day and included: Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir, Joseph De Camp, Edward Simmons, Robert Reid, Willard Metcalf, Thomas Dewing, and John H. Twachtman (at his death replaced by William Merritt Chase). page 1445 Category: ARTFACT REL. 1.5F - (c)1994,1995 ARTFACT, INC./FINE ART AUCTION LISTINGS / The formation of "The Ten" paralleled Monet's revolutionary stand against the Paris Salon in 1874 and symbolized Thomas Eakins's plea "...to peer deeper into the heart of American life...[and] to create a great and distinctly American art." (Pierce, "The Ten," p. 26) According to Dr. Gerdts, although "The Ten" was made up of artists from both New York and Boston, the Bostonians represented a more cohesive group, both stylistically and in terms of predominant subject matter. Tarbell became so popular that his followers were called "The Tarbellites," a term coined by a critic of the day. (Sadakichi Hartmann, March 1897) Gerdts describes Tarbell's painting during the 1890s as "...among the most advanced in color and aesthetic of light of any American artist." (Gerdts, p. 92) These outdoor genre views depict intimate moments in the life of the New England elite. In 1890, Tarbell produced "In a Garden" or "The Three Sisters," his first great success in "plein air" painting, which is now in the collection of the Milwaukee Museum of Art. However, "In the Orchard" (1891), a larger canvas with five figures, established the artist as "a commanding figure" among the Impressionists of the period. (Gerdts, p. 117) This masterpiece was recently acquired by the Terra Museum of American Art in Chicago and was described in the "Art Interchange" in 1894 by William Henry Howe as "the best picture of its class that I have seen...It is natural, easy, gay, and a charming effect of color and light." (Howe in Gerdts, p. 117) "Mother and Child in Pine Woods" most directly relates to "Mother and Child in a Boat" painted in 1892 and in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Both pictures depict a mother and child enveloped in the lavender and pink hues of Impressionism against the backgrounds of sun-dappled trees or water. The brilliance of these two pictures is rare in Tarbell's work as by 1898 the artist turned primarily toward a more sobering palette and quiet interior figurative subjects. The artist's first solo exhibition was held in 1894 at J. Eastman Chase's Gallery in New York and featured sixteen outdoor scenes including these two paintings. Tarbell often used members of his family as subjects and "Mother and Child in Pine Woods" is no exception. Painted "circa" 1893 and like "Mother and Child in a Boat," the present painting features the artist's wife Emeline whom he married in 1888 and his daughter Josephine born in 1890 and named after her father's fellow artist and friend Joseph De Camp. Josephine was the first of his four children and would have been three years old at this time. Since Tarbell enjoyed painting leisure activities, women walking in long, graceful gowns years old at this time. Since Tarbell enjoyed painting leisure activities, women walking in long, graceful gowns were enticing subjects. However, by portraying his family, the artist personalizes his canvases as is evident in the touching and intimate rapport between mother and daughter in "Mother and Child in Pine Woods". Painted in the summer, a sense of peace transcends the setting as the heat of the day is diffused by the shade of the pines. The fluffy white impastoed dresses with hints of pink, contrasted against the cool green and darker feathery pigments of the forest, provide a vitality and depth to the canvas, characteristics significant in this period of the artist's work. In his 1896 essay "Boston Art and Artists," William Howe Downes describes Tarbell's achievement as an Impressionist: "...few modern painters of any school have given a more striking interpretation to the phenomena of light and color in relation to the human figure." (Downes in "The Bostonians," p. 57) This accolade summarizes Tarbell's accomplishment in "Mother and Child in Pine Woods." The Property of ELIZABETH BLANEY CRAM.