Genre
JANE PETERSON (1876–1965)
Beach Scene, about 1915
Gouache on paper, 9 x 12 in.
Signed (at lower left): JANE PETERSON
EX COLL.: Eleanor Jacobs, Connecticut, by 1990 until 2020; to her estate, until the present
Beach Scene shows bathers at the end of a sunny day on a sandy strand. A few umbrellas remain up, but the pink hue on the edge of the horizon suggest a late hour. The work is carefully composed with horizontal bands of beach, water, and sky dramatically punctuated by a strong diagonal of beachgoers seated beachgoers attracting the viewer’s first attention. Beach Scene (a generic title) can be dated by gauging the outfits of the crowd. They are appropriate to around 1915, after the covered-up modesty of the late nineteenth century, with arms and even some legs showing, but well before the abbreviated bathing outfits of the early 1920s.
