Provenance
Thomas Barlow Walker [1840-1928], Minneapolis, by 1925; T.B. Walker Foundation, Minneapolis; gift 1976 to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; (sale, Sotheby's, New York, 24 May 1989, no. 31); private collection; Juliana [Mrs. Peter] Terian, New York; purchased 27 May 2004 through (David Nisinson Fine Art, New York) by NGA.
Accession Number
2004.58.1
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 76.8 x 127.6 cm (30 1/4 x 50 1/4 in.) | framed: 108 x 158.4 cm (42 1/2 x 62 3/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Paul Mellon Fund and Gift of Juliana Terian in memory of Peter G. Terian
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting Canvas American Color: Gold Color: White
Background & Context
Background Story
Worthington Whittredge (1820-1910) was a Hudson River School painter who spent formative years in Düsseldorf and Rome before returning to America, and Second Beach, Newport shows his mature American style: a coastal landscape rendered with the atmospheric subtlety and tonal unity that distinguish the best Hudson River School painting from the more theatrical work of his contemporaries. Newport's Second Beach, with its wide sandy shore and rocky headland, gave Whittredge a subject that combined the horizontal expanse of his marsh paintings with the rocky coastline of his New England subjects.
Cultural Impact
Whittredge's coastal paintings of the 1870s and 1880s represent his engagement with the New England landscape that was becoming increasingly popular with American painters and patrons. Second Beach, Newport participates in the tradition of New England coastal painting that included works by Heade, Homer, and Lane, but Whittredge's treatment is more atmospheric and less topographic than theirs, reflecting the influence of his European training on his American subjects.
Why It Matters
Second Beach, Newport is Whittredge's European training applied to New England scenery: the atmospheric subtlety and tonal unity of his Düsseldorf years combined with the rocky coastline of coastal Rhode Island. The result is a painting that feels both European in its refinement and American in its subject matter.
