Monday Morning Museum: Maurice Brazil Prendergast

Maurice Brazil Prendergast, 1913 by Gertrude Käsebier

Maurice Brazil Prendergast – Sunday 10 October 1858 St. John’s, Newfoundland to Friday 1 February 1924 New York, New York

Canadian-born American Impressionist Painter

Low Tide, Beachmont, circa 1900-1905

Medium: Watercolor over pencil
Dimensions: 15 3/8 x 22 in. (39 x 55.9 cm)
Classification: Drawings
- Metropolitan Museum of Art

"A prolific painter who favored the watercolor medium during most of his career, Prendergast worked in Boston as a commercial artist before training at the Académie Julian and the Atelier Colarossi in Paris from 1891 to 1894. Upon his return to Boston, he exhibited watercolors of coastal scenes, which he had made both in Brittany and in Massachusetts. The seaside was to be a fertile source for Prendergast's art for the rest of his life. Drawn to the populated urban beaches north of Boston, such as Revere Beach and Beachmont, he found that their working-class promenaders dressed in finery allowed him to engage issues of class and fashion. In this he was an heir to French avant-garde painting of the spectacle of modern life." – Worcester Art Museum

Last Monday’s Artist – Washington Allston
Next Monday’s Artist – Carleton Emmons Watkins

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent