Maurice Prendergast
1858-1924

Maurice Brazil Prendergast was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and raised in Boston.  Of the significant American Modernists of his time, he was the one artist most inspired by (and attuned to) the European Modernist movement.   Prendergast’s exposure to European art began with trips to Paris in 1886, and subsequently in late 1890 to study at the Académies Colarossi and Julian.  In 1894, he returned to the United States, deeply impressed by the works of the European Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and the Nabis.  Among his greatest influences were Cézanne, Seurat and Bonnard.  Prendergast immediately began incorporating the styles of European Modernism into his work.

Upon his return to the U.S., Prendergast lived with his brother Charles (also an accomplished artist and frame-maker) in Massachusetts, but he made frequent trips to New York.  He returned several times in the next decade, immersing himself in art ranging from Greek Classicism to the Fauves.  In 1908 he was included in the seminal group show at the Macbeth Gallery that resulted in the participating artists being described as “The Eight.”