Maurice Brazil Prendergast (American, 1854 to 1924)
Maurice Brazil Prendergast, was an American Impressionist Painter, illustrator, printmaker, designer, and watercolorist. He was born in 1859 in New Foundland, but grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. According to his brother Charles, Maurice spent every minute of his time sketching. He left school after only eight or nine years, going to work at a commercial art firm. Maurice went to Paris in 1892, and first studied under Gustave Courtois. He then moved to the Academie Julian, and met Canadian painter James Wilson Morris, who influenced him to begin painting pochades, which were small sketches on wood. In Paris, Maurice’s work expanded into a sophisticated modern style inspired by post-impressionists.
In 1895, Maurice Prendergast returned to the U.S., joining his brother in Massachusetts. He worked in oils, watercolor, and monotype. He continued to focus on women, men, and children at leisure, with a keen ability to capture them naturally. In 1899, he returned from spending a year back in Venice, with a series of watercolors of the city. In 1900, the Macbeth Galleries in New York staged an exhibition of his original oil paintings, where he was one of only eight artists being exhibited (and the only Bostonian in the show). In 1907, he returned again to France, and was profoundly influenced by Cezanne and the fauves. Maurice Prendergast’s artwork was heavily criticized for his abstract qualities of form and color, yet this eventually set him apart from other American painters of his time. In 1913, Maurice participated in the Armory Show, where he was said to be the only American whose artwork was as advanced as the European artists in the exhibition.
Information courtesy of Cottone Auction and Appraisals, March 2010.