Lithotint on Japan paper, 1918. 278x380 mm; 10 3/4x14 3/4 inches, full margins. Edition of approximately 55. Signed with the artist's cypher in pencil, lower right. A superb, richly-inked impression of this very scarce print.
A celebrated American painter, Hassam (1859-1935), along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, galleries and museums. In addition to his painterly skills, Hassam was also a prolific printmaker. He made more than 350 etchings; by comparison his lithographed oeuvre of fewer than 50 subjects is considerably more limited. The technical complexity of producing lithographs might have been a determining factor. He could produce etchings on his own in his studio, using minimal materials and with greater spontaneity; for lithography he worked alongside a lithographic printer, using more complicated printing supplies and proofing impressions at a printing workshop.
Hassam produced all of his 45 lithographs during the years 1917-18, working with the printer George Miller in New York. Of these, five were lithotints, like the current work, drawn directly on the stone whereas the lithographs were drawn on transfer paper first and thereafter transferred to the printing stone. Griffith 29.
