Maurice Prendergast: By the Sea, which is now on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine, explores the artist’s lifelong fascination with the sea. Maurice Prendergast, a pioneering post-Impressionist painter, spent much of the late 19th century and early 20th century capturing modern life on the coast of New England.
By the Sea is the first retrospective of Prendergast’s oeuvre in over two decades. The exhibition presents more than 90 works in a variety of media from over 30 public and private collections in addition to Bowdoin College Museum of Art’s own holdings. The exhibition traces the development of Prendergast’s highly personal style, which is recognized for its use of jewel-like colors and pattern-like compositions containing flattened, free-form figures. The exhibition also includes Prendergast’s sketchbooks and oil studies, allowing visitors to see into the Modernist artist’s creative process.
Highlights include the watercolor The Balloon, which is part of a private collection and has not been included in earlier Prendergast retrospectives; St. Malo, a bright watercolor on loan from the Williams College Museum of Art, which was lauded as one of the first American introductions of the bold European Post-Impressionist avant-garde; and a number of works that the artist contributed to the seminal Armory Show of 1913 (also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art).
Maurice Prendergast: By the Sea will be on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art through October 13, 2013.
