Childe Hassam - April Showers, Champs Elysees Paris [1888]

Childe Hassam - April Showers, Champs Elysees Paris [1888], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The greatest of the American Impressionists, Hassam (1859 - 1935) began his artistic career in 1876 as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines such as Scribner's, Century, and Harper's. In the early eighties, Hassam developed a style that reflected both academic realism and Barbizon School influences. By the mid eighties, Hassam was working with a carefully limited palette to produce evocative urban scenes, especially of gray, rainy days. In 1886, Hassam went to Paris for three years, where he entered the Académie Julien to refine his figure technique and, outside the Académie, absorbed the influence of Impressionism, enhancing his sense of colour and light. April Showers, with its loose brushwork and spontaneous texture, clearly shows Hassam's debt to European Impressionism while at the same time remains true to the artist's partiality for depicting inclement weather.

[Oil on canvas. 31.8 x 42.5 cm]