  About the Artwork
  
  
  In this focused study of a rocky shore, Childe Hassam offers a plunging view that omits a horizon line. Looking down, the painter used bright highlights of sunlight reflecting off the water to trace the undulating surface of the ocean, the foam of saltwater crashing on rocks, and the shifting colors of the rocks as waves wash over them.

Hassam painted Appledore Island in the Isles of Shoals off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire over nearly thirty years of summer visits. The island provided him with respite from the summer heat in the cities where he spent the cooler months, beautiful natural settings for painting outdoors, and the companionship of a community of artists and writers. In his early visits to Appledore in the 1880s, he painted lush studies of the garden grown by poet Celia Thaxter. After her death in 1894, he shifted his attention to the dramatic contrasts of the island’s rocky coastline.
  
  
  Title
  Surf and Rocks
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1906
  
  Artist
  Childe Hassam
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1859-1935
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 20 × 30 inches (50.8 × 76.2 cm)
  Framed: 31 1/4 × 41 3/8 × 2 inches (79.4 × 105.1 × 5.1 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  Founders Society Purchase, Lizzie Merrill Palmer Fund
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  19.19
  
  
  Copyright
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