1908
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Rocky Seashore is a 1908 by Maurice Prendergast, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see bright blue water crashing against pink and yellow rocks under a pale sky. Prendergast painted fast, letting the white paper peek through. Those tiny gaps make the rocks look wet and sunlit. He did this years before most American artists tried modern styles. Look up the Armory Show of 1913 to see the European art that surprised New York.
Throughout Prendergast’s career, the seaside was one of his favorite subjects, but in this watercolor, his true concern was color. Painting rapidly, Prendergast allowed the white of the paper to show around the edges of his jagged strokes of color, suggesting sunlight on wet rocks. This spontaneous seascape identifies him as one of the first American artists to experiment with modernism before the Armory Show in New York City of 1913, the first large-scale exhibition of European modern art held in the United States.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Maurice Brazil Prendergast (October 10, 1858 – February 1, 1924) was a Newfoundlander-American artist who painted in oil and watercolor, and created monotypes.
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