Tuesday, July 18, 2023 – ROMANTIC SCENES BY THE SEA
FROM THE ARCHIVES
TUESDAY, JULY 18, 2023
ISSUE# 1037
SUMMER AT THE
SEASIDE
WILLIAM GLACKENS
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN
ART MUSEUM
****
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
William Glackens, Beach Umbrellas at Blue Point, ca. 1915, oil on canvas, 26 x 32 in. (66.1 x 81.3 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ira Glackens, 1968.1
William James Glackens – http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2011/american-paintings-n08751/lot.6.html
- Public Domain
- File:BATHERS AT PLAY, STUDY -2.PNG
- Created: 1 January 1914
William James Glackens – https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6368648
- Public Domain
- File:William james glackens bathers111309).jpg
- Created: circa 1918date QS:P571,+1918-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1480,Q5727902
The color and drama at a beachside Coney Island fruit stand
July 17, 2023
When social realist artist William Glackens visited Coney Island in the late 1890s, he had a bounty of kaleidoscopic scenes he could have immortalized in paint: the double-dip chutes of Steeplechase Park, the aquatic animals at Sea Lion Park, or the mass of humanity crowding the boardwalk and bathing pavilions.
But what captured his interest and imagination? A small wooden fruit stand perched on the sand.
It’s a curious choice out of all the attractions at Sodom by the Sea, as Coney was known in its golden era. But Glackens’ “Fruit Stand, Coney Island” manages to draw out much more emotion and drama than seen at first glance.
The bright yellow bananas and red, white, and blue American flags are blasts of color under the white-gray storm clouds looming over the beach. Individual vignettes of the people at the stand tell their own stories: children dip their toes in the water, older girls adjust their appearance, a mother looks down at the baby she cradles. Each vignette represents a different stage of life, particularly women’s lives.
The American flags tell us it might be the Fourth of July. Coney Island would have been packed with thousands of revelers—mostly working-class day trippers who came on ferries and trains with dimes in their pockets to pursue the pleasures, and vices, of Coney’s seaside attractions.
There’s an Old Masters feel to the painting, which may not be accidental. With Robert Henri in 1895, Glackens “made the pilgrimage to Paris, where he soaked up the improvisational brushwork of the French Impressionists as well as the brooding palate of Old Master paintings he saw on a bike trip through the Dutch countryside,” stated a 2007 New York Newsday article on Glackens, above in a 1908 self-portrait.
The influence of his trip to Europe likely rubbed off on the young artist, who was just 28 at the time he painted the fruit stand. The more you look into the painting, the more you see.
[NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; Wikipedia]
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