ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES - MAURICE PRENDERGAST

Regarded as an American artist, Maurice Prendergast (1858-1924) was born in St. Johns, New Foundland, but left Canada in 1868, moving with his family to Boston.

In 1891, the artist traveled to Paris to pursue his study of art at the Atelier Colarossi and Acad,mie Julian. While remaining Boston-based, the artist spent much of his life traveling in Europe, recording vignettes of city life in his signature style, a mosaic of lively surface pattern and color.

Prendergast's work was stylistically influenced by C,zanne and the Fauve artists whose work he first encountered while in Paris in 1907. Prior to this encounter, the artist had worked almost exclusively in watercolor but, after viewing an exhibition of their work, switched to oil painting which allowed him to achieve greater surface texture. He exhibited in the United States with The Eight, a group of American painters, founded by Robert Henri, who painted primarily urban scenes.

Prendegast was among the first American artists to adopt a modern European style of painting.