The Lion Gardiner House, Easthampton

Childe Hassam

1920 · Etching; only state · Drawings and Prints

The celebrated American Impressionist Childe Hassam made his first etchings in 1898 but only began to focus seriously on the medium in 1915. The artist bought a property in East Hampton in 1919 and then explored local subjects in his art, among them the historic house seen here. Working in monochrome encouraged a new emphasis on surface patterning and Hassam weaves strking visual effects from shadows, leaves and branches, demonstrating a new expressionism The Lion Gardiner House, shielded by a picket fence and ancient trees, had been built in 1835 and named after a seventeenth-century English settler and major property owner in the area. When Hassam depicted it, the building belonged to a descendant, David Gardiner. In the major hurricane of 1938 it would be severely damaged and then replaced by a Renaissance style stone mansion.

Artist

Childe Hassam

Date

1920

Medium

Etching; only state

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Fern and Lewis Lowenfels, 2022