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Oct 17, 2012

May Day, Central Park

1901

Maurice Prendergast

(American, 1858–1924)

America, 19th century

Watercolor over graphite

Support: Beige(1) wove paper

Sheet: 35.4 x 50.6 cm (13 15/16 x 19 15/16 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1926.17

Catalogue raisonné: Clark, Mathews, and Owens 795

Location

not on view

Did you know?

Maurice Prendergast studied in Paris and was influenced by the French Impressionists and their focus on modern urban life.

Description

Maurice Prendergast worked primarily in watercolor, and Central Park—seen in this drawing— was one of his favorite subjects. He regularly visited the popular public area in New York City during the early 1900s, while he was living in Boston. Prendergast's depictions of Central Park often focus on festivities and celebrations, continuing a theme he had explored in other cities, such as Paris and Venice. Here, the artist depicted children celebrating May Day by dancing with colorful ribbons around a Maypole on a sunny day. He worked with rapid, loose marks, leaving portions of the paper visible to create highlights throughout. Prendergast was drawn to this subject, and revisited it many times.

Inscriptions

Inscription

signed, across bottom, in brown ink: Maurice B. Prendergast Central Park. 1901. / New York.; verso, upper left, in graphite: No 22; center, in graphite: May Day Central Park

Provenance

1926

(Kraushaar Galleries, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)

1926-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000. Mentioned: pp. 224-225, p.296; Reproduced: p. 295

Wattenmaker, Richard J. "Maurice Prendergast." Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin 40, no. 1 (1982-1983): 25-37. Mentioned: p. 36 n. 16

Milliken, William Mathewson. "The Maurice Prendergast Memorial Exhibition." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 13, no. 2 (February 1926): 40-41. Reproduced: p. 38

Milliken, William Mathewson. "Maurice Prendergast, American Artist." The Arts (April 1926): 181-192. Reproduced: p. 187

Maurice Prendergast Memorial Exhibition. Exh. Cat. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1934. Mentioned: no. 95

Francis, Henry S. "Museum Water Colors and the Thirteenth Exhibition of Water Colors and Pastels." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. 24, no. 3 (March 1937): 39-41. Mentioned: p. 40

Painting Today and Yesterday in the United States. Exh. Cat. Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1941. Mentioned: no. 97

National Cyclopedia of American Biography. Vol. 30. New York, 1943. Mentioned: pp. 398-399

Acquarela - E.E.U.U. Watercolor - USA, A Survey of Watercolor - USA from 1870 to 1946. Exh. Cat. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1946. Mentioned: no. 6

Metcalfe, James J. "Artists." Cleveland News (August 19, 1950): 50. Mentioned: p. 50

The Exhibition of American Painting. Exh. Cat. Athens, OH: Ohio University, 1954. Mentioned: no. 27

McKinney. Roland. The Eight. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1954. Reproduced

American Watercolor Exhibition Exh. Cat. New Delhi: All-India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, 1954. Mentioned: no. 1

The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 563 archive.org

Rhys, Hedley Howell. Maurice Prendergast, 1859-1924. Exh. Cat. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1960. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 88

Dodd, Loring Holmes. "Two Important Shows at Boston Museum." Worcester Evening Gazette (November 5, 1960): 7. Mentioned: p. 7

"Holiday Idyls [sic] of Long Ago: Nostalgic Appeal of Prendergast's World." Life Magazine (September 1, 1961). Mentioned and reproduced

Simon, John. "Maurice Prendergast." New York Times (February 26, 1961): X-19. Mentioned: p. X-19

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 189 archive.org

Curry, Larry. Eight American Masters of Watercolor. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1968. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 36

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 189 archive.org

"A Checklist of American Paintings and Water Colors of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Early Twentieth Centuries in The Cleveland Museum of Art." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 1 (January 1973): 21-32. Mentioned: p. 32

Boyle, Richard J. American Impressionism. Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1974. Mentioned: p.225; Reproduced: p. 1

Glubok, Shirley. The Art of America in the Early Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1974. Reproduced: inside front and back cover

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 235 archive.org

The Monotypes of Maurice Prendergast. Exh. Cat. New York: Davis & Long Company, 1979. Mentioned: p. 12; Reproduced: p. 138

Perlman, Bennard B. The Immortal Eight: American Painting from Eakins to the Armory Show. Westport, CT: Exposition Press, 1979. Reproduced: p. 153

Five American Masters of Watercolor: Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Maurice Prendergast, John Marin, Charles Burchfield. Exh. Cat. Evanston, IL: Terra Museum of American Art, 1981. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 18

Japanese Artists Who Studied in U.S.A. and the American Scene. Exh. Cat. Toyko: National Museum of Modern Art, 1982. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 62

Koschatzky, Walter. Die Kunst des Aquarells: Technik, Geschichte, Meisterwerke. Vienna: Residenz Verlag, 1982. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 200

Langdale, Cecily. "The Late Watercolor/Pastels of Maurice Prendergast." Antiques 132 (November 1987): 1084-1095. Mentioned: p. 1089

Clark, Carol, Nancy Mowll Mathews, and Gwendolyn Owens. Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné. Williamstown, MA: Williams College Museum of Art, 1990. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 412, no. 795

Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Maurice Prendergast. Exh. Cat. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1990. Mentioned: p. 20, p. 98, p. 184, no. 42; Reproduced: p. 87

Anderson, Janice. Children in Art. New York, 1996. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 114-115

Pride in Place: Landscapes by The Eight in Southern Collections. Exh. Cat. Albany: Albany Museum of Art, 2000. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 19

Exhibition history

The Maurice Prendergast Memorial Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 15-February 15, 1926).

Painting Today and Yesterday in the United States. Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA (organizer) (June 5-September 1, 1941).

Watercolor USA: A Survey of Watercolor from 1870 to 1946. Walker Art Center (organizer) (April 24-May 28, 1946); National Gallery of Art (May 17-August 1, 1946).

Maurice Prendergast: 1859-1924. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (June 21-July 30, 1961).

Eight American Masters of Watercolor: Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Maurice B. Prendergast, John Marin, Arthur G. Dove, Charles Demuth, Charles E. Burchfield, Andrew Wyeth. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (April 23-June 16, 1968); Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum (June 28-August 18, 1968); Seattle Art Museum (September 5-October 13, 1968).

American Water Colors from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 23-September 25, 1974).

Five American Masters of Watercolor. Terra Museum of American Art (organizer) (May 5-July 12, 1981).

Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).

Gallery One 2012. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 12, 2012-March 5, 2017).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=May Day, Central Park|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1926.17|author=Maurice Prendergast|year=1901|access-date=28 November 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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May Day, Central Park

May Day, Central Park

Maurice Prendergast

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