Charles Webster Hawthorne
(American, 1872–1930)
Biography
Charles Webster Hawthorne was an American artist known for his lushly painted portraits and landscapes. Some of his most admired works are depictions of the seaside around Provincetown, MA. “It is so hard and long before a student comes to a realization that these [first] few large simple spots in right relations are the most important things in the study of painting,” he once explained. “They are the fundamentals of all painting.” Born on January 8, 1872 in Lodi, IL, he was raised in Maine before moving to New York at the age of 18. While working as an office clerk during the day, Hawthorne studied drawing and painting in the evenings at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. Of all his teachers, the most influential was William Merritt Chase, Chase taught the young artist the importance of starting a painting with large tonal values. In 1899, Hawthorne himself had begun teaching, founding the Cape Cod School of Art that same year. He continued to teach in Provincetown each summer until his death on November 29, 1930 in Baltimore, MD. In 1938, the influential book Hawthorne on Painting, was published, it was composed of the accumulated writings of the artist, collected by his widow Marion Campbell Hawthorne. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., among others.
Charles Webster Hawthorne Artworks
Charles Webster Hawthorne
(217 results)
Charles Webster Hawthorne
First Communion (Portuguese girl)
Sale Date: December 3, 1987
Auction Closed