1915
American
oil on panel
Unframed: 13 × 14 in. (33.02 × 35.56 cm)
Framed (New frame): 17 7/8 × 21 3/4 in. (45.4 × 55.25 cm)
2011.51
Not on view

Ernest Lawson trained with American landscape painter Julian Alden Weir and with John Twatchman at New York’s Art Students League, but it was his subsequent encounter in France with one of the original Impressionists, Alfred Sisley, that fully confirmed his aesthetic. He later became associated with Robert Henri’s circle of progressive painters, joining them in the Eight and Armory Show exhibitions. Lawson applied the paint to the canvas in Cape Ann so thickly that it stands in relief, revealing the path of the brush and palette knife in several passages. In this way he grants immediacy and authenticity to this view of the seaside artist colony of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, which he frequented along with other followers of Henri.

Gilded Age; Progressive Era; Impressionism
Signed E. Lawson in lower right
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles G. Thalhimer in celebration of VMFA's 75th anniversary.
Image released via Creative Commons CC-BY-NC

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