Flags, Fifth Avenue
- MAKER:
Artist
Childe Hassam ( American, 1859 - 1935 )
- DATE:
- 1918
General Description
Childe Hassam depicts New York’s Fifth Avenue decorated with American and Allied flags for a patriotic celebration during the final year of World War I. During the war, he completed more than thirty oil and watercolor paintings of New York’s flag-draped streets. Hassam was already interested in modern city subjects by 1886, when he went to Paris as a student and came into direct contact with Impressionism. In this watercolor, Hassam left his light pencil under-drawing visible and filled in the scene with overlapping dabs and blocks of color, capturing the prismatic effect of bright sunlight illuminating a bustling crowd.
Adapted from
Sue Canterbury, label copy, 2018.
Web Resources
- Childe Hassam, Biography
Learn more about Childe Hassam at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.