Maurice Prendergast
born Oct. 10, 1859, St. John's, Nfd., Can.
died Feb. 1, 1924, New York City
painter, one of the finest American watercolourists, and one of the
first artists in the United States to use the broad areas of colour
characteristic of Postimpressionism.
During the 1880s he studied art for two years in Paris, where he was
influenced by the work of the French Impressionists and James McNeill
Whistler. A painting such as “Umbrellas in the Rain” (1899; Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston), painted during his second European trip, reflects
his new interest in Postimpressionist currents, especially in the
paintings of Édouard Vuillard and Paul Cézanne and the doctrines of
Pointillism. Later pictures are composed of floating geometric areas of
colour, representing such objects as hats,umbrellas, trees, balloons,
and carriage wheels. Many of his works before 1904 were done in
watercolour, but after this date he increasingly painted in oils from
watercolour sketches. Still mosaic-like in effect, his later works are
more abstract in treatment.
Prendergast's works were shown in the controversial Armory Show in New
York City (1913), and he exhibited with The Eight.
