Maypole

In a dazzling study of light, color, and pattern, a young boy supports a maypole in Central Park, while girls hold on to its long ribbons, another adjusts her hair bow, and mothers look on. Maurice Prendergast's vision of May Day in New York City's Central Park captures a celebration that originated in the 1870s and attracted thousands of children. The density of the foliage contributes a double-maypole effect, as the group gathers under a tree whose form echoes the maypole itself. Intentional blotting of the trees creates a silvery effect. The reverse of the sheet contains a lightly sketched horizontal view of figures in a park; although it is faint, the composition bears affinity with a 1902 drawing of May Day in Central Park in the collection of the Whitney Museum.

Prendergast studied in Paris in the early 1890s and returned to the United States in 1894; he began to find success after exhibiting his paintings, prints, and watercolors in Boston galleries.

Port scenes and seascapes were among Prendergast's favorite subjects, and the AMAM owns another watercolor, Le Port, St. Malo, Brittany, of 1909, which shows influences of Cézanne and Signac, as well as two oil paintings, After the Storm (ca. 1901, which has a second beach scene painted on its reverse) and Bathing Tents, St. Malo (1907).