Race Track

Maurice Prendergast painted "Racetrack" in Boston shortly after returning from almost four years in France, where he studied at the Académie Julian and tirelessly sketched scenes of Parisian life. Having observed Impressionist and Post-Impressionist pictures of Parisians promenading in parks, at the racetrack, and on the beach, Prendergast painted similar idyllic scenes in the Boston area. In "Race Track" he rendered both adults and children enjoying leisure time at a sporting event held in a large park. This is probably Franklin Park, laid out in the 1880s by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead as part of Boston's Emerald Necklace (a series of interconnected parks ringing the city). Instead of showing the excitement of the race itself, Prendergast portrayed the audience-on holiday and dressed in their Sunday clothes-between races. The artist delighted in painting white, pink, and gray dresses against the grid created by the fence and chairs. He punctuated the overall pattern of the painting with red-orange parasols, flags, and wagon wheels, giving the scene a festive air. A master watercolorist, Prendergast here treated oil paint as if it were watercolor, indicating white areas by leaving the canvas bare and using thin washes of pigment. The result is a cheerful exposition of urban middle-class recreation expressed through bold color and inventive composition. This text was adapted from Carol Troyen and Janet Comey, "Children in American Art" (Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 2007, in Japanese).