French Cruiser
Hassam - French Cruiser
Childe Hassam (1859-1935), French Cruiser, lithotint, 1918, signed in pencil with the cipher lower right. Reference: Griffith 8. In very good condition, printed in black ink on cream wove paper with a flower watermark, the full sheet with deckle edges, 6 x 11, the sheet 11 1/8 x 18 inches.
A fine impression of this rare print.
Hassam was of the course the pre-eminent American Impressionist, and French Cruiser is a superb example of his use of impressionism in printmaking. In his lithotints he applied ink with the same fluidity as with his watercolors. The detailed line-work of the etchings is replaced with masses of black or grey on white, spatial recession is denied, and the images are vertically layered on the picture plane; this is all about the play of shadows and light.