Maurice Prendergast

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Maurice Brazil Prendergast

(born Oct. 10, 1859, St. John's, Nfd., Can. — died Feb. 1, 1924, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Canadian-born U.S. painter. He moved with his family to Boston in 1868. After study in Paris (1891 – 94), he spent much of his career traveling and painting abroad. He was the first U.S. artist to fully absorb French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. His lively street scenes feature floating geometric areas of brilliant decorative colour with a mosaiclike effect. He produced his most outstanding works in watercolour. In his later years he lived in New York City and exhibited with The Eight and in the 1913 Armory Show.

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Art Encyclopedia: Maurice (Brazil) Prendergast

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(b St John's, Nfld, 10 Oct 1858; d New York, 1 Feb 1924). American painter, printmaker, illustrator and designer of Canadian birth. He moved with his family to Boston in 1868 and was working as a commercial artist by 1886, lettering showcards, but his early attempts at watercolour foretold little of the talent that emerged after he travelled to Paris in January 1891. He studied for three years at the Atelier Colarossi under Gustave Courtois (1853-1923), and later at the Acad?mie Julian under Benjamin Constant, Joseph Blanc and Jean-Paul Laurens. Here the influence of the Nabis and of Whistler was particularly important to his development.

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Biography: Maurice Brazil Prendergast

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American painter Maurice Brazil Prendergast (1859-1924) pioneered in introducing new directions in American painting. He was the only true American postimpressionist of his generation.

Maurice Prendergast was born in St. John's, Newfoundland, on Oct. 10, 1859. When his father's grocery business failed in 1861, the family moved to Boston. He and his younger brother Charles finished their formal education by the time each was 14. Maurice worked in a dry-goods store, lettered show cards, and began sketching landscapes and cattle. In 1886, he and his brother worked their way to England on a cattle boat; they may have gone to Paris as well. Returning to Boston, they worked at routine jobs in order to save $1, 000 for a return to Europe. Maurice went to Paris in 1891 and studied with Jean Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian. He made rapid progress in 3 years, working from the model rather than from casts. He was fascinated with the life and movement in the parks, boulevards, and cafés.

When he returned to America in 1894, Prendergast was an accomplished watercolorist and had assimilated qualities from Édouard Manet, James McNeill Whistler, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, and Édouard Vuillard and from Japanese prints. He was the first American artist to appreciate and understand the importance of Paul Cézanne. Until 1905 the Prendergast brothers lived together in Winchester, Mass., their principal means of support being a frame-making shop. Maurice's work was included for the first time in a public exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1896; there was a one-man show in Boston the next year, and from this time until his death his paintings appeared in many exhibitions.

In 1898 Prendergast went to Venice, where he created some of his most enchanting watercolors. Arthur B. Davies invited him to join with other artists in the famous exhibition of "The Eight" in 1908, organized as a protest against the conservative tendencies of the National Academy of Design. Prendergast was in France again in 1909 and in Italy in 1911. The influence of Paul Signac is perhaps to be observed from this period.

The seven watercolors that were included in the celebrated Armory Show in 1913 revealed Prendergast as a major figure in American painting, probably the greatest of his generation. He was perhaps the first to deliberately abandon a primarily representational approach to art and to let the subject matter be dominated by purely artistic means.

Prendergast went to Europe for the last time in 1914. On his return he and his brother (also a painter) moved to New York, where Maurice spent his last decade working in a studio in Washington Square. During summers in New England, he painted in oil and watercolor brightly clad figures on beaches and in parks, often using a kind of pointillism which gives his work a tapestrylike quality, sometimes with almost expressionistic intensity, but relying even more on pure color, loosely applied in abrupt areas, to suggest form, movement, and texture. There is a combination of wistfulness and gaiety, a sense of elegance and innocence in his paintings. He characteristically introduces large numbers of figures; a sense of individuality is avoided, but there is always warmth and charm.

Prendergast was increasingly isolated in his later years because of deafness. He died in New York on Feb. 1, 1924.

Biography

Youth

Prendergast was born in St. John's, a city in Newfoundland, Canada. With the failure of his father's subarctic trading post, the family moved to Boston. There, young Maurice was apprenticed to a commercial artist and at the outset was conditioned to the brightly colored, flat patterning effects that characterized his mature work.

Interpersonal relations

A shy individual, Maurice remained a bachelor throughout his life. He became closely attached to his artist brother Charles, who was a successful frame maker. For three years, Maurice studied in Paris at the Académie Colarossi and the Académie Julian.

During one of his early stays in Paris, he met the Canadian painter James Morrice, who introduced him to English avant-garde artists Walter Sickert and Aubrey Beardsley, all ardent admirers of James McNeill Whistler. The influences of these men set his future painting style.

He was a member of the 20th century group of American painters called The Eight, whose members included the group's leader Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Ernest Lawson, George Luks, and William Glackens.

Style

A further acquaintance with Vuillard and Bonnard placed him firmly in the postimpressionist camp. He developed and continued to elaborate a highly personal style, with boldly contrasting, jewel-like colors, and flattened, patternlike forms rhythmically arranged on a canvas. Forms were radically simplified and presented in flat areas of bright, unmodulated color. His paintings have been aptly described as tapestry-like or resembling mosaics. A trip to Venice in 1898 exposed him to the delightful genre scenes of Vittore Carpaccio and encouraged him toward even more complex and rhythmic arrangements. He also became one of the first Americans to espouse the work of Cézanne and to understand and utilize his expressive use of form and color.

Prendergast typically painted people involved in leisurely activities. At the Armory Show in 1913, he displayed seven works that showed his stylistic maturity. Although he predominantly worked in watercolors, he began using oils in his later career. He also produced a large number of monotypes between 1891 and 1902.