Art in Focus

Summer in Art: Dive into Scenes of the Season

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Summer is ripe with inspiration for artists. Golden light. Bountiful fruit. Lush landscapes. Sparkling skies. Busy beaches.

Explore creations that call to mind the warmer months by artists likes Emma Amos, Pierre Bonnard, Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper, Jasper Johns, Claude Monet, Pat Steir, and James Van Der Zee. Maybe they’ll remind you of summers spent by the pool—or convince you to brave the humidity and soak in the sun.

At the Beach

Artists may have gone to the beach for the inspiration as much as the sea breeze. Painter Mary Cassatt and artist and poet Margaret Burroughs both captured little ones playing in the sand. Works by painters and printmakers Wilson Shieh and Harry Sternberg show swimmers among the waves.

Addison Scurlock took this sweet snapshot of a group at Maryland’s Highland Beach, the first Black-owned summer resort in America, in the 1930s. An earlier photograph from an unknown photographer at the turn of the 20th century shows crowds at New York City’s Coney Island Beach—a place where all classes of people came together during the summer.

Addison Scurlock, Picnic Group, Highland Beach, Maryland, c. 1931, printed later, gelatin silver print, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, William A. Clark Fund), 2015.19.4446

Two pale-skinned little girls sit back-to-back on a sandy beach, almost filling the width of this vertical painting. The girls wear matching pale, ice-blue pinafores over short sleeve, ocean-blue dresses. Both sit with their legs stretched in front of them and angled to our right. The girl closest to us, to our left, looks down at the denim-blue pail and wooden shovel she holds between her ankles. She holds the long-handled shovel in her near hand with the end inside the pail. She has a chubby, flushed, round face with blond hair and rosy arms and legs. She wears black shoes and appears to have a brown sock on her near leg but a dark blue sock on the other. Her companion sits just beyond her and to our right with her body turned away from us. Her wide-brimmed straw hat is trimmed with a tomato-red ribbon tied in a bow at the front. The hat hides her face, and her outstretched legs are encased in olive-green stockings. Her near hand reaches across her lap to grab the pail sitting on the far side of her legs. The beach meets the pale blue and aquamarine ocean in the upper third of the painting. A patch of strokes and daubs of dark blue and peach near the upper left and a tan wedge in the water to our right are painted loosely along the shoreline. Two white sailboats and a horizontal white dash with three dark blue dots drift on the water. The artist signed the lower right, “Mary Cassatt.”

Mary Cassatt, Children Playing on the Beach, 1884, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.19

Margaret Burroughs, On the Beach, c. 1957, linocut, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of the Print Research Foundation, 2008.115.340

Roy Lichtenstein, Serge Lozingot, Edward Henderson, Gemini G.E.L., At the Beach, 1978, color lithograph on Arches 88 wove paper, Gift of Gemini G.E.L. and the Artist, 1991.74.146

Harry Sternberg, Four Seasons: Summer, 1941, color screenprint, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.4640

Jacques Villon, Woman in Blue at the Beach, 1902/1904, watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1995.47.71

Mark Rothko, Figure at a Beach, (drawing), Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., 1986.56.573

American 20th Century, Detroit Photographic Company, On the Beach at Coney Island, published 1902, photo-chromolithograph, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon, 2018.177.190

James Van Der Zee, Posing at the Beach, c. 1925, gelatin silver print, Avalon Fund, 2019.127.15

Wilson Shieh, Crown Point Press, Catherine Brooks, Dena Schuckit, Swimmer, 2005, color softground etching with aquatint on gampi paper chine collé mounted onto wove Somerset paper, Gift of Kathan Brown, 2011.119.114

Summer Treats

Artists agree that there’s nothing better than summer produce. Watermelons, raspberries, cherries, plums, and tomatoes appear in still lifes by 19th-century American painters John F. Francis and Lilly Martin Spencer, French post-impressionist Pierre Bonnard, and German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans. Prints by American artists Helen West Heller and Emmy Lou Packard honor the workers who supply us with delicacies like a sweet ear of corn or a succulent crab claw. Dig in!

John F. Francis, Watermelon and Grapes, 1863, oil on wood, Gift of William and Abigail Gerdts, 2018.44.6

Helen West Heller, Corn Husking (right panel), 1935, wood engraving in black on wove paper, Gift of Jacob Kainen, 2002.98.128

Emmy Lou Packard, Crab Fishermen, 1953, color linocut, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of the Print Research Foundation, 2008.115.489

Lilly Martin Spencer, Raspberries, c. 1859, oil on canvas, Gift of William and Abigail Gerdts, 2005.161.1

Pierre Bonnard, Cherries, c. 1910, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2006.128.6

Otto Heinigke, A Peach, 1878, watercolor on wove paper, Gift of William and Abigail Gerdts, 2018.44.51

Wolfgang Tillmans, August, 2002, chromogenic print, Gift of the Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, 2012.116.2

Summer Celebrations

Capped by Memorial Day and Labor Day, with Juneteenth and Independence Day in between, summer is filled with commemorations and celebrations. July 4 fireworks, parades, and history are the focus of works by artists from painter and printmaker Jeannette Maxfield Lewis to photographer Robert Frank and sculptor Claes Oldenburg. And credit is due to the unknown photographer who masterfully captured the magic of fireworks—a picture many of us have tried, but failed, to take.

Bobby Donovan, 4th of July, D.C., 1986, color woodcut on wove paper, Gift of Jacob Kainen, 2002.98.381

Jeannette Maxfield Lewis, Fourth of July, 1958, etching, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.3163

Robert Frank, Fourth of July—Jay, New York, 1954, gelatin silver print, Robert Frank Collection, Gift of Robert Frank, 1990.28.120

American 19th Century, Winslow Homer, Fire Works on the Night of the Fourth of July, published 1868, wood engraving, Gift of Addie Burr Clark, 1946.9.96

American 20th Century, Untitled (Silhouette of couple watching fireworks), 1930s, gelatin silver print, Gift of Robert E. Jackson, 2008.134.72

Claes Oldenburg, U.S.A. Flag, 1960, muslin, plaster, tempera, and wire, Gift of John and Mary Pappajohn, 2004.154.1

American 20th Century, Untitled (Two women wrapped in American flag), late 1910s, gelatin silver print, Gift of Robert E. Jackson, 2008.134.74

Summer Scenes

Painter George Bellows and photographer Louis Draper captured the ingenuity of city kids looking for relief from the heat everywhere from New York City’s East River docks to a streaming fire hydrant. Claude Monet and Pat Steir focused on stunning stalks of sunflowers. Bathing beauties are the subject of this Boticelli-inspired photograph by Angela Strassheim and the patterned print by Emma Amos.

From a high vantage point, we look down ontp a group of dozens of boys who stand, sit, stretch, sprawl, or dangle their legs off a rough wooden pier that juts out from the lower left corner into a dark river in this horizonal painting. Their gangly bodies are loosely painted and brightly lit from the upper left. Most are nude, their skin tones ranging from cream white to medium brown. There are gaps between some of the planks of pier, and some of the boards hang off the sides, as if laid loosely across the supports beneath. One boy dives into the river near the center of the painting while another bends over to pull a boy back onto the pier. Several splash in the water near the right side of the painting. The river is emerald green near the brightly lit pier and becomes almost black across the upper half of the painting. An empty, small rowboat painted in stripes of white, white, and blue floats in the shadows along the top center edge of the canvas.

George Bellows, Forty-two Kids, 1907, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, William A. Clark Fund), 2014.79.2

Louis Draper, Summer, New York City, 1961, printed c. 1970s, gelatin silver print, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2020.70.2

Pat Steir, Crown Point Press, Sunflower, 1986, color woodcut on Echizen-Mashi paper, Gift of Kathan Brown, 1998.40.471

A small child stands facing us on a sun-dappled path that runs up the center of a garden dominated by towering yellow and burnt-orange sunflowers in this loosely painted, vertical scene. The light comes from our right so long, sea-green and plum-purple shadows cross the peach-colored path. The path is wide at the bottom center of the canvas and narrows as it reaches the steps of a house, beyond the garden. Close to us, four blue and white porcelain urns line the path, separating it from the grassy banks to either side. The urns are filled with tall stems with coral-pink and cardinal-red flowers. The child stands about halfway back along the path, where the garden transitions from grass to the banks of tall sunflowers. A few strokes in front of the child could be a small dog. Behind the child, a woman and another child stand on the steps. The woman wears a cornflower-blue and white dress, while both children have bare legs and wear white clothes and yellow hats. All three have indistinct facial features and peach-colored skin. The house spans with width of the composition. It has an amethyst-purple roofline with two chimneys, and the petal-pink walls have mango-yellow highlights. Windows are covered with blue latticework. Above the house, fluffy white clouds float against a vibrant blue sky. The artist signed and dated the painting at the lower right in dark blue, “Claude Monet 80.”

Claude Monet, The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil, 1881, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.45

Angela Strassheim, Untitled (Alicia in the Pool), 2006, chromogenic print, Gift of The Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, 2014.150.12

Emma Amos, Pool Lady, 1980, etching, aquatint and stencil, Gift of the Collectors Committee, 2019.164.3

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