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Childe Hassam

The Messenger Boy

Description

Maker

Childe Hassam (American, 1859-1935)

Title

The Messenger Boy

Year

1903

Medium

  • Oil on canvas

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • Oil on canvas

Materials

oil paint

Dimensions

47 x 82.2 cm (18 1/2 x 32 3/8 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Signature: Signed LL:Childe Hassam 1903

Marks: Pencilled on stretcher: C. Hassam, Little Shoemaker's shop

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Jesse Metcalf Fund

Object Number

03.002

Type

  • Paintings

Provenance

The Artist, 1903

Projects & Publications

Publications

  • Books

Selection VII: American Painting from the Museum's Collection, c.1800-1930

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Making It In America
Oct 11, 2013 – Feb 09, 2014

Label copy

While studying in Paris in the 1880s, Hassam acquired an appreciation of the French Impressionists’ fresh palette and broken brushstroke. He applied these techniques in his landscapes and city views, including some of Manhattan, where he spent his winters.

In this snowy street scene, a courier trudges past storefronts, carrying documents from one business to another. The subject is unusual for Hassam, who had little interest in depicting the grittier conditions of urban life. Even here he remains primarily concerned with composition and with the evocative weather conditions that veil the street in blue and yellow light.

An American Idyll
19th-Century Paintings and Decorative Arts
Apr 06, 2007 – Jan 06, 2008

Label copy

Hassam was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and developed skills as an illustrator and watercolorist early in his career. After a trip abroad in 1883, he returned to Boston to paint atmospheric urban views that reflected the American interest in tonalism and the influence of James Whistler. Hassam’s later trips to France exposed him to the fresh palette and broken brushstroke of the Impressionists, which he applied to urban scenes for the remainder of his long career.

In 1898, Hassam became a founding member of “The Ten,” an association of like-minded American painters who sought improved exhibition spaces for their work. Some of Hassam’s most celebrated subjects were views of Manhattan, usually painted with a bright palette. He became increasingly aware of the city’s greater urbanization at the turn of the century and, like most New York painters, fled the city during the summer. To his friend Florence Griswold he wrote: "I don't know that I wish a very large dose of New York for any of my friends." This sentiment may underlie the faint grittiness of Messenger Boy, a street scene of shop fronts punctuated by a courier whose messenger bag is slung over his shoulder. This underpaid service was crucial to businesses that required the transfer of documents from one office to another; but Hassam was more interested in composition and atmosphere than in social realism. His subject is less the working messenger boy than the evocative weather conditions that veil the street in blue and yellow light.

American Paintings from the Museum's Collection
Feb 10, 1999 – Apr 01, 1999
From the Reserve IV
Nineteenth-Century American Painting
Jul 22, 1994 – Oct 02, 1994
Romanticism and Revival
Nineteenth-Century American Art from the Permanent Collection
Dec 04, 1992 – Jun 26, 1993
  • More Exhibition History +

Use & Feedback

Image use

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This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

Childe Hassam (American, 1859-1935)
The Messenger Boy, 1903
Oil on canvas
47 x 82.2 cm (18 1/2 x 32 3/8 inches)
Jesse Metcalf Fund 03.002

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Feedback

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