Childe Hassam

Childe Hassam had a varied arts education. In 1876, some years before he became a leader of the American Impressionists, he apprenticed to a Boston wood engraver. He also worked as a magazine illustrator while enrolled at the Boston Arts Club, and, after brief training at the Lowell Institute, he studied with the German-born painter Ignaz Gaugengigl (1855–1932), who specialized in accurately rendered figure groups. While in Paris from 1886 to 1889, Hassam continued his studies at the important Académie Julian, then returned to New York to set up his own studio. In 1897, he cofounded the Ten American Painters group with Paris-trained American Impressionists J. Alden Weir (1852–1919) and John Twachtman (1853–1902). Hassam exhibited in the landmark 1913 Armory Show in New York City, and soon after began to receive wide recognition for his etchings and lithographs. Throughout the 1890s and early 1900s, Hassam painted scenes of urban leisure, composed asymmetrically along receding axes of buildings or tree-lined avenues. Although he was awarded a bronze medal at the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, his reputation grew when he received another at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.