Child Hassam, American, 1859-1935
Some of the world's greatest artists, like Van Gogh, spent a lifetime in pursuit of their art with little critical, social or financial recognition. Hassam was not one of them. His talent was recognized early. He was feted from his first exhibition early on, collected aggressively and universally recognized as one of America's most significant painters from early in his career right up to his death. As an artist, Frederick Childe Hassam (October 17, 1859 - August 27, 1935) was a premier American Impressionist.
He was born Frederick Childe Hassam. He was named "Childe" after the surname of a maternal uncle and the "Hassam" was a distortion of the family name of Horsham, ancestors by that name having come to Boston from Sussex, England. Early in his career he dropped the use of the name Frederick and became simply, Childe Hassam. Listed amongst his ancestors are Nathaniel Hawthorne, the novelist, Richard Morris Hunt, the architect, and William Morris Hunt, the painter.
Childe Hassam was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on October 17, 1855. His father was a successful Boston businessman who was ruined financially in the great fire of 1872. Hassam left high school without graduating and ended up working for a Boston wood engraver. As an artist his formal studies were begun at the Boston Art Club (1878) and later continued at the Acad�mie Julian in Paris (1886-1889). He was greatly influenced by Louis Boulanger and Jules Joseph Lefebvre. He attended drawing classes at the Lowell Institute, a division of MIT, and was a member of the Boston Art Club. The early portion of his artistic career were devoted to illustrations and watercolors. At the age of 23 Hassam was exhibiting publicly and had his first solo exhibition, of watercolors, at the Williams and Everett Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts in 1892.
From this time forward, Hassam was committed to the life of a professional painter. Recognition came early in both the U.S. and abroad. In 1884 he married Kathleen Maudï Doane. Two years later he set off for Paris to complete his artistic training at Academie Julian. In addition, it being the center of the art world at the time Paris was home to several of the most celebrated art schools in the world. Academie Julian and the Ecole des Beaux Arts were home to many other American artists. Both of these schools used figure drawing and painting as the primary training ground for acquisition of all artistic schools.
Hassam was extremely active in the social and technical areas of the artistic community. In 1890, he, and several others, founded the New York Water Color Club. He also joined the American Water Color Society and shortly thereafter joined the Players Club and the Society of American Artists. He went on to found other artistic societies and join other clubs and as a result the society of artists and collectors in New York, the art capital of the United States, regularly saw and purchased his work. The fruition of this entrepreneurial fervor came about in 1897 when he help establish the Ten American Painters, an exhibiting group that included many of the finest painters of the day: Frank W. Bensen, William Merritt Chase, Thomas Dewing, John Twachtman and J. Alden Weir. The artist and his wife were tireless travelers. Between 1888 and ?? they visited Spain, Italy, England, and France. They traveled extensively in the U.S. and took regular holidays in East Hampton, Old Lyme, Greenwich and the Appledore Island off the cost of New Hampshire. This travel allowed the artist to have the constant reference of new landscape as well as permitting the interchange of idea and technique with fellow artists.
