Paris Sketchbook

Maurice Brazil Prendergast

1891–94 · Conté crayon, pencil, and watercolor sketches · Robert Lehman Collection

Of the 88 recorded sketchbooks by Maurice Prendergast, this notebook is the only one to date from his first years in Paris. The little album records in brisk crayon notations (and occasional pencil and/or watercolor) incidental impressions of Parisian life as they touched the sensibility of this eager young artist. Prendergast carried the sketchbook everywhere, along fashionable boulevards, the banks of the Seine, in and around the Jardin du Luxembourg, Jardin des Plantes, and other public parks. Modishly dressed parasoled women already feature prominently among these anecdotal studies, whose imagery would later inform the highly finished watercolors of Prendergast’s Paris sojourn (1891-94).

Artist

Maurice Brazil Prendergast

Date

1891–94

Medium

Conté crayon, pencil, and watercolor sketches

Department

Robert Lehman Collection

Credit line

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975