Wharf of Red Boats
Wadsworth was a gifted American Impressionist celebrated for his plein-air paintings. His father, Dr. Francis L. Wadsworth, was from Maine and became a prominent physician in Chicago at Rush College of Medicine and St. Joseph’s Hospital. His mother Sarah was artistically inclined; she painted and played the piano. When Frank Wadsworth was fourteen years old, his mother enrolled him in the junior course at the School of the Art Institute. Wadsworth however stayed for only one month. After an eight-year hiatus, at the age of twenty-four, he returned to the School of the Art Institute, where over a short period mastered the curriculum and earned seven honorable mentions for his paintings.
After his father died, he and his mother traveled to Europe in 1896 and met the exponent of American Impressionism, William Merritt Chase. The two became good friends--Chase an important mentor for the younger Wadsworth. Back in the United States, Wadsworth studied formally with Chase in New York City and at his summer school in Shinnecock, Long Island, where the students specialized in outdoor painting. Wadsworth received numerous accolades for his appealing pictures. He was recognized in 1904 with a bronze medal at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. He served on the jury for the Art Institute’s American art annual. And the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts (founded in 1902) mounted a solo show for him in February 1905. That summer, Wadsworth accompanied Chase to Spain, on what was to be his last trip. He died in Madrid, at age thirty-one of what was referred to as "autumnal fever." The art world mourned the early passing of this young, talented artist both home and abroad.
Wharf with Red Boats chronicles a 1903 sojourn Wadsworth spent in Haarlem, the Netherlands. He attended there an art class overseen by his mentor Chase. The repetition of the dark orange-red color on the boats and the roofs attractively unifies the composition. Wadsworth enlivened the scene with his typical compositional trait of an unusual perspective. Most striking, he elevated the common by his impressionistic sleight of hand. Human presence is limited, and certainly not the focus.
