About the Artwork
Though less tightly orchestrated than many of Prendergast’s seaside processionals, this work is typically organized into three horizontal bands of grass, sea, and sky. The friezelike arrangement of the figures is abstractly echoed in coloristic sequences that are, for the most part, applied in broad, rectangular strokes, with the white ground visible around the blocks of color. While the immediate inspiration for this technique can be traced to the French painter Georges Seurat (whose works Prendergast studied on his trips to Europe and also at the Armory Show of 1913 in New York), Prendergast developed an individual style in which the dabs of color are so large they no longer are subservient to the scientific theories of the rendering of light, but are instead components of a colorful mosaic pattern.
This painting was part of a mural project conceived by artists Walt Kuhn (1880–1949), Arthur Davies, and Maurice Prendergast in 1914. The three painters executed a set of four large canvases, which they exhibited in the spring of 1915 in New York City. John Quinn, one of America’s foremost collectors of European avant-garde art and a great admirer of the work of these Americans, purchased all four: this work and its companion piece, Picnic (now in the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh); Kuhn’s Man and Sea Beach (now lost); and Davies’ Dances (DIA acc. no. 27.158).
Promenade
1914 or 1915
Maurice Brazil Prendergast
1858-1924
American
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 85 × 134 inches (215.9 cm × 3 m 40.4 cm) Framed: 88 5/8 × 139 × 2 5/16 inches (225.1 cm × 3 m 53.1 cm × 5.9 cm)
Paintings
American Art before 1950
City of Detroit Purchase
27.159
Copyright Not Evaluated
Markings
Signed, lower right: Prendergast
Provenance
ca. 1914, Montross Gallery;1915, John Quinn;
1924, Estate of John Quinn;
1927, American Art Association.
1927-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture. Exh. cat., Montross Gallery. New York, 1915, no. 42. [as Decoration-Promenade]
Bretton, James. “American Modernism.” American Art News 13 (April 1915): p. 10. [as Decoratio-Promenade]
“The MacBeth Gallery.” Arts & Decoration 5 (March 1915): p. 238 (ill.).
Post Exposition Exhibition: Department of Fine Arts. Exh. cat., Panama-Pacific International Exposition. San Francisco, 1916, no. 6228. [as Mosaic]
John Quinn 1870-1925: Collection of Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, and Sculpture. Huntington, NY, 1926, p. 25.
Paintings and Sculptures: The Renowned Collection of Modern and Ultra-Modern Art Formed by the Late John Quinn. Exh. cat., American Art Association. New York, 1927, no. 380.
“Paintings Sold at Auction.” American Art Annual 24 (1927): p. 384.
“Quinn Art in Five Session Sale.” Art News 25 (January 1927): p. 2.
“List of Quinn Collection to Go at Auction.” New York Times (January 16, 1927): p. 20.
“Sale of Quinn Collection is Completed.” Art News 25 (February 19, 1927): p. 10.
“List of Acquisitions for the Year 1927.” Bulletin of the DIA 9 (February 1928): p. 62.
Detroit Institute of Arts. Catalogue of Paintings in the Permanent Collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts of the City of Detroit. Detroit, 1930, no. 361.
Maurice Prendergast Memorial Exhibition. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1934, no. 36.
Eglington, Lauric. “Predergast Art in Fine Memorial.” Art News 32 (March 1934): pp. 3-4.
Jewell, Edward Alden. “Prendergast Oils in Memorial Show: 75 Watercolors Included in Collection on View at the Whitney Museum.” New York Times (February 1934): p. 17.
Painting in America: The Story of 450 Years. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1957, no. 152.
Maurice Prendergast: 1859-1924 (centennial exhibition). Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts. Boston, 1960, no. 34.
Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts: A Checklist of Paintings Acquired Before June, 1965. Detroit, 1965, p. 88.
Gimpel, Rene. Diary of an Art Dealer. New York, 1966, pp. 323-324.
Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts: A Checklist of Paintings Acquired Before January. Detroit, 1967, p. 92.
Reid, B.L. The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends. New York, 1968, p. 660.
Wattenmaker, Richard J. Puvis de Chavannes and the Modern Tradition. Exh. cat., Art Gallery of Ontario. Toronto, 1975, p. 24.
Green, Eleanor. Maurice Prendergast: Art of Impulse and Color. College Park, MD, 1976, pp. 26, 70.
Zilcer, Judith. The Noble Buyer: John Quinn, Patron of the Avant-Garde. Exh. cat., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, D.C., 1978, p. 36, no. 15.
Nawrocki, Dennis A. “Prendergast and Davies: Two Approaches to a Mural Project.” Bulletin of the DIA 56, 4 (1978): pp. 243-244, 248.
Rivard, Nancy J. “American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts.” Antiques 114 (November 1978): pp. 1044, 1053 (ill.).
Zilcer, Judith. “The Dispersal of John Quinn’s Collection.” Connoisseur 202 (September 1979): pp. 22-27 (ill.).
__________. “The Dispersal of the John Quinn Collection.” Archives of American Art Journal 19, 3 (1979): p. 20 (ill.).
Selected Works from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1979, p. 193 (ill.).
“Family Art Game.” DIA Advertising Supplement. Detroit News (May 20, 1979): p. 6 (ill.).
“Family Art Game.” DIA Advertising Supplement. Detroit News (April 10, 1983): p. 30 (ill.).
New Standard Encyclopedia. Detroit, 1983. [as Promenade]
Gerdts, William H. American Impressionism. New York, 1984, p. 288 (ill.).
Marlor, Clark S. The Society of Independent Artists: The Exhibition Record 1917-1944. Park Ridge, NJ, 1984, p. 448, no. 3811 (ill.).
One Hundred Masterworks from the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York, 1985, pp. 208-209 (ill.).
“Family Art Game.” DIA Advertising Supplement. Detroit News (April 14, 1985): p. 19 (ill.).
Zilcer, Judith. “The Dissemination of Post-Impressionism in North America: 1905-1918.” The Advent of Modernism: Post Impressionism and North American Art, 1900-1918. Atlanta, 1986, pp. 32, 39.
Strickler, Susan E. American Traditions in Watercolor: The Worcester Art Museum Collection. New York, 1987, p. 150.
Gengarelly, W. Anthony, Carol Derby, et al. The Prendergasts and the Arts and Crafts Movement: The Art of American Decoration and Design, 1890-1920. Williamstown, MA, 1989.
Clark, Carol, Nancy Mowll Mathews, and Gwendolyn Owens. Maurice Brazil Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné. Williamstown, MA, 1990.
Wattenmaker, Richard J. “Maurice Prendergast.” The New Criterion 9, 3 (November 1990): p. 38.
Henshaw, Julia P., ed. The Detroit Institute of Arts: A Visitor’s Guide. Detroit, 1995, p. 208 (ill.).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Promenade, 1914 or 1915, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, City of Detroit Purchase, 27.159.
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