18 Facts About Maurice Prendergast

Maurice Brazil Prendergast was an American artist who painted in oil and watercolor, and created monotypes.

Maurice Prendergast and his twin sister, Lucy, were born at their family's subarctic trading post in the city of St John's, in Newfoundland, then a colony in British North America.

Maurice Prendergast grew up in the South End and was apprenticed as a youth to a commercial artist.

Maurice Prendergast was inspired by the example of Boston Impressionist Childe Hassam.

Maurice Prendergast became closely attached to his younger brother Charles, who was a post-impressionist painter.

Maurice Prendergast studied in Paris from 1891 to 1895, at the Academie Colarossi with Gustave Courtois and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and at the Academie Julian.

Maurice Prendergast studied the work of Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat at retrospectives held in Paris in 1891 and 1892.

Maurice Prendergast was additionally one of the first Americans to espouse the work of Paul Cezanne and to understand and utilize his expressive use of form and color.

Maurice Prendergast returned to Boston in 1895 and worked mainly in watercolor and monotyping.

Maurice Prendergast showed in a National Arts Club exhibition in 1904, through which he befriended the painters William Glackens, Robert Henri, and John French Sloan.

Maurice Prendergast exhibited with them in 1908 at Macbeth Galleries, along with George Luks, Everett Shinn, and Arthur B Davies, a group collectively known after the show as The Eight.

Maurice Prendergast's work was the subject of a retrospective at Joseph Brummer Gallery in 1921, but the Metropolitan Museum of Art declined to host a Prendergast memorial retrospective after his death in 1924; at that time, his art was still seen as too demanding and advanced for the Metropolitan's trustees.

Maurice Prendergast believed in a "no jury, no prizes" openness that would allow independent or unconventional artists greater opportunities to find a wider, appreciative audience for their work.

Maurice Prendergast was far more a Modernist than any of the other seven members of The Eight.

Maurice Prendergast's work was strongly associated from the beginning with leisurely scenes set on beaches and in parks.

Maurice Prendergast experimented with oil painting in the 1890s, but did not focus on that medium until the early 1900s.

Maurice Prendergast developed early in his career and continued throughout his life to elaborate a highly personal style, with boldly contrasting, jewel-like colors, and flattened, pattern-like forms rhythmically arranged on a canvas.

Maurice Prendergast's paintings have been aptly described as tapestry-like or resembling mosaics.