Spring, Navesink Highlands

Childe Hassam, born Dorchester, MA 1859-died East Hampton, NY 1935 · 1908

Childe Hassam lived in New York, but he also spent a good deal of time away from the chaos of urban life, painting landscapes and quaint villages in New England. (Pyne, Art and the Higher Life, 1999) In this painting of New Jersey's Navesink Highlands, he used quick brushstrokes to capture the effect of a cool spring breeze in the flickering leaves and ripples on the water. After he had chosen a frame for the piece he wrote to his patron William T. Evans that "I am glad to say it looks as fine as anything anywhere in the world."