Description
In this intimately scaled seascape, James McNeill Whistler employed the sparest of compositional elements to evoke a coastal atmosphere. Broad horizontal bands of blues and gray suggest sky, ocean, and sand, with dabs of thin pigment giving economical, yet expressive form to around a dozen figures on the windswept beach. Whistler dedicated much of his artistic practice to capturing the mood and color harmonies of marine scenes. Coast Scene, Bathers was painted en plein air, a practice to which the artist returned in the 1880s. It marked a distinctive shift from his studio-produced Nocturnes of the previous decade.
Provenance
Mrs. J. Cross, by November 1917; sold to P. and D. Colnaghi and Co., London, November 1, 1917 [according to Young, MacDonald, Spencer, and Miles 1980]; partial share sold to M. Knoedler and Co., New York, December 31, 1917; sold to Charles B. Eddy (1872–1951), New York, April 1918 [M. Knoedler and Co. Stock Book 6, Stock No. 14346, copy in curatorial object file]; returned to M. Knoedler and Co., New York, by January 1919; sold to R.C. and N.M. Vose Gallery, Boston, November 1919 [M. Knoedler and Co. Stock Book 6, Stock No. 14561, copy in curatorial object file]; sold to Woodruff J. Parker (1880–1930), Chicago, June 5, 1922. With Chester H. Johnson Galleries, Chicago, by 1926; sold to Walter Stanton Brewster (1872–1954), Chicago, 1926 [according to Young, MacDonald, Spencer, and Miles 1980]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.
Accession Number
14309
Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
13.3 × 21.9 cm (5 1/4 × 8 5/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Walter S. Brewster Collection
