The early twentieth century witnessed the transformation of the United States into a modern industrialized society and an international political power. By 1920 more than half of the country’s population lived in urban areas. Seeming to guarantee employment, the cities lured many farmers and African Americans from rural areas. In addition, between 1900 and 1920, 14.5 million immigrants from Europe, Russia, Mexico, and Asia settled here, primarily in urban centers. A new energy was channeled to such cities as New York and Chicago, as massive skyscrapers were erected to furnish much-needed office space and living quarters. Even West Coast cities were affected—the population of Los Angeles tripled between 1900 and 1910; its unplanned urban sprawl and dizzying speed were captured in the zany movies of the Keystone Cops, filmed on the streets of the city.

Art reflected these changing social and economic dynamics. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism were still popular. Yet other, more progressive ideas now challenged artists. A strong new commitment to realism emerged in literature and the fine arts.

In Philadelphia and New York, a group of artists centered around Robert Henri captured the vitality of urban American life. These realists depicted the hustle and bustle of city streets, the common pleasures of restaurants and various forms of entertainment. Critics dubbed these realists the “Ash Can School” because of their treatment of unidealized subject matter previously considered unattractive. These artists focused on the inhabitants of cities rather than the cities themselves. Their interest in people also led them to create a significant number of single-figure paintings, conveying the human side of the new America . During the 1910s and 1920s the realist celebration of America spread throughout the country, as artists recorded the neighborhoods and people that made their own cities distinct.

 

Maurice Prendergast has been lauded as America’s earliest and finest postimpressionist. From the 1890s through the 1910s he moved away from the impressionistic recording of natural scenes to develop a more personal mode of expression. Though Prendergast painted classic impressionist motifs – the beach, park strollers, quiet harbors – throughout his career, he actually was not interested in subject matter per se. He preferred to experiment with formal elements, conceiving of them abstractly. Cove, Maine marks the beginning of Prendergast’s move to a more avant-garde aesthetic. During a 1907 visit to Paris he was staggered by the art of Paul Cezanne, which was presented at a major retrospective, as well as by the intimist paintings of Edouard Vuillard and the fauves. He noted a “new impulse” in his work arising from the experience. He loosened his brushwork further so that it took an energetic life of its own. The canvas became a tapestry of color and movement analogous to the melody and rhythm of music. He would often construct his compositions literally on the canvas, rather than conceiving of them in preparatory drawings, by first applying then changing the placement of his brushstrokes. With such color symphonies Prendergast advanced the cause of modern art in the United States during the years prior to the 1913 Armory Show, which introduced European modernism to this country.