National Gallery of Art - THE COLLECTION

Tour: American Impressionists of the Late 1800s and Early 1900s

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image of Margaret ( image of A Friendly Call image of Allies Day, May 1917
1 2 3
image of Midsummer Twilight image of Salem Cove image of Mother and Mary
4 5 6
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Since the development of the oil technique during the early 1400s, the equipment and chemicals necessary for painting were simply too cumbersome to remove them easily from artists' studios. By the late 1700s, some painters did venture outdoors to sketch in oils, but their refreshing, small-scale works were normally considered mere training exercises. The ability to create finished canvases away from the studio hinged on a British patent granted to John Rand, an American artist-scientist.



1Frank Weston Benson, Margaret ("Gretchen") Strong, c. 1909
2William Merritt Chase, A Friendly Call, 1895
3Childe Hassam, Allies Day, May 1917, 1917
4Willard Leroy Metcalf, Midsummer Twilight, c. 1890
5Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Salem Cove, 1916
6Edmund Charles Tarbell, Mother and Mary, 1922
7John Henry Twachtman, Winter Harmony, c. 1890/1900