12. Charles Prendergast The Dance, c. 1916 Tempera and gold leaf on incised gessoed panel 20 3/8 x 15 1/2 inches

Charles Prendergast (1863-1948)
The Dance, c. 1916
Tempera and gold leaf on incised gessoed panel
20 3/8 x 15 1/2 inches

Incised and gilded upper left: CP

Ex-collections:

The artist
Kraushaar Galleries, New York, 1935
Private collection, New York, c. 1935-40, until the present

Exhibition:

New York, Kraushaar Galleries, Charles Prendergast, October 15-November 2, 1935, no. 18 on checklist

Literature:

Clark, Carol, Nancy Mowll Mathews, and Gwendolyn Owens. Maurice Brazil Prendergast/Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné. Williamstown, Mass.: Williams College Museum of Art, 1990, and Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1990, p. 722, no. 2430.

Charles Prendergast was born in Boston and lived and worked with his older brother, Maurice, in Massachusetts until they moved to New York City in 1914. Charles, a professional frame-maker, built Renaissance inspired frames that were simply carved and finished with gilt and raw gesso. He also painted and by 1912 was executing incised and painted gesso panels as well as carved and decorated chests and screens in exotic motifs. The panels immediately attracted collectors such as Albert C. Barnes, John Quinn, and Lillie P. Bliss. Prendergast's work displays far-reaching Near Eastern and oriental influences in style and subject, much of it drawn from the Chinese and Persian collections in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts that he so admired.

Charles and Maurice delighted in mosaic color and exquisite design; each artist expressing these elements differently in his art. In 1925, after the death of Maurice, Charles traveled to France and married Eugénie van Kemmel upon their return to America. They lived in Westport, Connecticut until his death in 1948.

The design and pattern of The Dance provides clarity and simplicity to this remarkable decorative panel. A figure dances in a fantastic landscape while gilt deer graze and prance in the background. Deer were a preferred motif of the artist, appearing in many of his early works. The patinated surface of the panel and distressed self-frame create the illusion of antiquity.

This painting has descended in the original owner's family and is here illustrated for the first time.

© 1997 Adelson Galleries, Inc