About This Artwork

Childe Hassam
American, 1859-1935

New England Headlands, 1899

Oil on canvas
68.9 x 68.9 cm (27 1/8 x 27 1/8 in.)
Signed, lower left: "Childe Hassam 1899"
Walter H. Schulze Memorial Collection, 1930.349

New England Headlands is a panoramic landscape depicting Gloucester, Massachusetts, one of Childe Hassam's favored summer haunts in his travels along the New England coast. Gloucester was home to many artists during the summer months, who, like Hassam, chose to emphasize its picturesque aspects (quaint architecture and sailing vessels) rather than the fish-drying and -packing plants that were prominent features of the landscape in this bustling fishing town. The work exhibits Hassam's development of broken, hypen-like brushwork and his use of bare canvas as a compositional device. Bright, saturated blues and crisp whites augment the maritime nature of the work, while the square canvas emphasizes its architectonic quality and harmoniously organized space.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1- Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 561.

Tucson, Museum of Art, University of Arizona, Childe Hassam, 1859-1935, cat. 51; traveled to Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Mar. 26-Apr. 30, 1972.

Richmond, Virginia Museum, American Marine Painting, Sept. 27-Oct. 31, 1976, cat. 55, as New England Headlands.

Albi, France, Musee Toulouse-Lautrec, Tresors Impressionistes du Musee de Chicago, June 27-August 31, 1980, cat. 45.

Publication History

“The Walter H. Schulze Memorial,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 24 (1930), p. 79 (ill.).

Frederick A. Sweet, The Walter Schulze Gallery of American Paintings (Art Institute of Chicago, 1943), p. 14 (ill.).

“‘New England Headlands’: A Painting by Childe Hassam,” Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 17, 1947, p. 1 of The Home Forum Section, ill.

Milo M. Naeve, Classical Presence in American Art (Art Institute of Chicago, 1978), p. 34, no. 45.

Judith A. Barter et al, The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2011), no. 64.

Ownership History

Macbeth Galleries, New York City, by 1919; Paul Schulze, Chicago, from 1919 to 1930; given to The Art Institute of Chicago, 1930.