Genre
MAURICE PRENDERGAST (1858–1924)
Figures on the Pier, about 1907–10
Oil on wood panel, 10 1/8 x 13 1/2 in.
Signed (at lower right): Prendergast
RECORDED: Carol Clark, Nancy Mowll Mathews, and Gwendolyn Owens, Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné (Williamstown, Massachusetts: Williams College Museum of Art, 1990), p. 255 no. 217 illus.
EX COLL.: the artist; to his brother, Charles Prendergast, 1924; to his wife, Mrs. Charles Prendergast; to her attorney, Mr. John W. Boyd; [David Findlay Jr., Inc., New York]; to Mrs. Eugene Casey, Potomac, Maryland, 1995–2022; to her estate, until the present
Prendergast’s preoccupation with themes of recreational activity in relation to the sea is well exemplified in Figures on the Pier, which features a gathering of sightseers enjoying a seasonal outing along the coast, possibly a site Prendergast observed in or around Gloucester. Several of the participants stand along a wooden jetty, their backs turned away from the viewer as they watch some sailboats skimming across the choppy waters. In the foreground right, our gaze is immediately drawn to the two behatted ladies––summer parasols in hand––making their way along the rocky shoreline towards another female visitor seated on the left. In keeping with his aesthetic approach, Prendergast divides the composition into clearly defined areas of land, water, and sky, the latter two sections bisected by a narrow stretch of distant coastline. Painted on a medium-sized wood panel, Figures on the Pier was executed in oil, a medium Prendergast adopted during the 1890s and turned to with increasing frequency after about 1903–04. In contrast to his watercolors, with their thin, translucent washes, his oils are rich and dense––the result of applying thick layers of paint, in short, abbreviated strokes, across the surface of his support.
Prendergast’s breezy seashore scenes are replete with movement and animation and Figures on the Pier is no exception. The painting was created between about 1907 and 1910, at a time when Prendergast began incorporating the bold colors and stylized shapes of Fauvism and the more divisionist brushwork of Neo-Impressionism into his work following trips to Europe in 1907 and 1909–10. So inspired, he applies his pigments––a medley of blues, mauves, and white interspersed with soft earth tones and vibrant accents of blue, orange, and purple—with dynamic, stitch-like strokes that bring the composition to life, creating a high degree of patterning and lush textures and, of course, that festive air that made the artist’s work so distinctive. As was Prendergast’s practice, the figures are devoid of facial features––their anonymity contributing to the evocative, unreal quality that pervades the image and attesting, as well, to the artist’s ongoing engagement with the formal concerns of Modernism.
