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Home , Childe Hassam, Theodore Robinson, William Merritt Chase

Childe Hassam, Study for Across the Avenue in Sunlight, 1918 Oil on board, 8 x 9.8 in. (20.3 x 24.9 cm.) Private Collection

Three enormous flags of the major Allied nations–Britain, and the –are draped over the grand Beaux-Arts style façade of Knoedler & Company, at its original location at 556 at 46th Street. The painter’s vantage point is from across Fifth Avenue to the north and east. As pedestrians stroll underneath the flags, these monumental symbols of patriotic fervor hang somberly over them, as if to offer protection from the threat of barbarous Teutonic hordes across the sea.

This small oil on panel by (Figs. 1–7) is likely a study for a larger work on canvas, Across the Avenue in Sunlight, June [1918] (Fig. 8), currently in the collection of the IBM Corporation in Armonk, New York. This larger version is somewhat richer in detail, and notably displays the flags hanging from the Knoedler building in a different order. Also notable is the difference in the use of light between the two versions. The subject study has a muted palette. It is predominately painted in grays and beiges, with streaks of blue on the sidewalk, suggesting recent rainfall. Across the Avenue in Sunlight, June, however, true to its title (and rather unusually, among from Hassam’s Flag series), glows with the bold light of an early summer morning.

Hassam, the patriarch of American and among the most famous living American artists at the outset of , is probably best known for his series of paintings depicting Fifth Avenue adorned with the flags of the United States and those of her allies (Figs. 9–12).1 Hassam was a Francophile, of proud British ancestry, and was strongly averse to anything German.2 He supported the war against and the Austro- Hungarian Empire unconditionally. To that end, Hassam’s choice of the Knoedler building as the setting for the present should not be considered a coincidence. Hassam believed strongly in the role of art and artists in supporting the war effort, and the Knoedler building was a towering symbol of the American art world on Fifth Avenue, then known as the Avenue of the Allies. He spearheaded artist committees, exhibition, and relief drives to support the families of French soldiers, and even accepted Liberty Bonds as payment for his paintings.3

It should be noted that Hassam’s flag paintings cannot be attributed solely to militaristic patriotism (after all, Hassam’s earliest flag paintings were done in France decades earlier, depicting the Tricolore on rue Bonaparte during ). In 1892 Hassam pronounced that “the man who will go down in posterity is the man who paints his own time and the scenes of every-day life around him.”4 Hassam’s embrace of the urban landscape in the 1880s and 1890s is what set him apart from peers like and , who tended to focus on pastoral scenes.5 Hassam’s flag series should be viewed as a renewed commitment to the urban landscape. The sheer visual dynamism of the street scenes of war-time New York, with its banners and skyscrapers, proved irresistible for a painter like Hassam.

1 H. Barbara Weinberg, Childe Hassam: American Impressionist (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 3. 2 Ilene Susan Fort, The Flag Paintings by Childe Hassam (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1987), 10. 3 Weinberg, 217. 4 Ibid., 182. 5 Ibid., 299.

CHILDE HASSAM AMERICAN, 1859–1935

Study for Across the Avenue in Sunlight

1918 Oil on board 8 x 9.8 in. (20.3 x 24.9 cm.)

Fig. 2 Fig. 3 detail, Childe Hassam, Study for Across the Avenue in Sunlight, detail, Childe Hassam, Study for Across the Avenue in Sunlight, 1918, Oil on board, 8 x 9.8 in. (20.3 x 24.9 cm.) 1918, Oil on board, 8 x 9.8 in. (20.3 x 24.9 cm.) New York Private Collection New York Private Collection

Fig. 4 Fig. 5 detail, Childe Hassam, Study for Across the Avenue in Sunlight, detail, Childe Hassam, Study for Across the Avenue in Sunlight, 1918, Oil on board, 8 x 9.8 in. (20.3 x 24.9 cm.) 1918, Oil on board, 8 x 9.8 in. (20.3 x 24.9 cm.) New York Private Collection New York Private Collection

Fig. 6 Fig. 7 detail, Childe Hassam, Study for Across the Avenue in Sunlight, detail, Childe Hassam, Study for Across the Avenue in Sunlight, 1918, Oil on board, 8 x 9.8 in. (20.3 x 24.9 cm.) 1918, Oil on board, 8 x 9.8 in. (20.3 x 24.9 cm.) New York Private Collection New York Private Collection

Fig. 8

Childe Hassam, Across the Avenue in Sunlight Oil on canvas, 1918 26 x 36 in. (66 x 91.4 cm.) IBM Corporation Collection, Armonk, New York

Fig. 9

Childe Hassam, The Avenue in the Rain Oil on canvas, 1917 42 x 22.3 in. (106.7 x 56.5 cm.) The , Washington, D.C.

Fig. 10

Childe Hassam, The Fourth of July, 1916 Oil on canvas, 1916 36 x 26.1 in. (91.4 x 66.2 cm.) New York Historical Society, New York

Fig. 11

Childe Hassam, Early Morning on the Avenue, May 1917 Oil on canvas, 1917 30 x 36 in. (76.3 x 91.6 cm.) Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover,

Fig. 12

Childe Hassam, Flags on the Waldorf Oil on canvas, 1916 36.3 x 31.3 in. (92.1 x 79.4 cm.) Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth