Childe Hassam “Venice” Pair Rare Aquatints




Childe Hassam American Impressionist Painter, Lithographer, watercolorist and etcher (known to all as Childe, pronounced like child) left high school without graduating, and ended up working for a wood engraver. He attended drawing classes at the Lowell Institute, a division of MIT, and was a member of the Boston Art Club. He began his artistic career as an illustrator and watercolorist. By 1882, Hassam was exhibiting publicly and had his first solo exhibition, of watercolors, at the Williams and Everett Gallery in Boston. The following year, his friend Celia Thaxter convinced him to drop his first name and thereafter was known simply as “Childe Hassam”. Having had little formal art training previously, Hassam went to Paris in 1886 to study figure drawing and painting at the Académie Julian. He studied under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Joseph Lefebvre. However, he later considered the education he received there “superfluous.” What had a greater influence on Hassam’s work was the art he was exposed to in the city’s museums and galleries, especially the works of the Impressionists. Hassam returned to America and settled in New York City in 1889. He soon became close friends with fellow artists J. Alden Weir and John Henry Twachtman, whom he met through the American Watercolor Society. Hassam enthusiastically painted the genteel urban atmosphere he discovered in New York, which he greatly preferred to Paris. During his time in New York, Hassam made summer painting excursions to Thaxter’s home on Appledore Island, Maine, the largest of the Isles of Shoals; and to Gloucester, Massachusetts; Cos Cob, Connecticut; and Old Lyme, Connecticut.
Outstanding Childe Hassam (noted American Impressionist Master) was commissioned to execute and publish a series of Venetian Watercolors for “Venetian Life, 1889”.
Executed in the medium color Aquatint, employing multi plates for various colors and tonal effects. These beautiful works were conceived and printed under the supervision of Hassan and took place at the Riverside Press in Riverside New York, 1889.
Because of the high cost of published these works in high quality, the technique soon was ended by the first of the 19th century.
Sheet size: 4.50 by 7 inches on wove paper; framed size 11.50 by 13 inches each. This is an exceptional antique multi-stone aquatint has the look of an actual watercolor and of a limited edition. professionally framed and are truly beautiful works that will give you many years of great enjoyment.

The publication of these works became one of the finest Aquatints in color produced in the period and best among the finest Aquatint printing of the period in America , Here Childe Hassam works in watercolors became strong, brilliant, and individual. Among the best examples are his American water colors.
Today these examples are becoming very rare to find on the open market and are often overlooked by collectors of Hassam’s fine print-making.

Art (paintings, prints, frames)