Volendam Street Scene

1910

Robert Henri

Painter, American, 1865 - 1929

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

Volendam Street Scene, one of roughly 60 canvases Robert Henri painted during his third visit to Holland, documents rustic Dutch village life and colorful traditional costume. The rapidly executed sketch exemplifies the artist’s desire to capture momentary, spontaneous visual effects. A woman crosses the road in the center foreground, while a group of villagers go about their daily business on the right. Despite the abbreviated forms, their distinctive hats and clogs are recognizable.

Henri visited Europe during the summer of 1910, where he spent the first six weeks in Haarlem, The Netherlands. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries Haarlem and the quaint villages around it on the North Sea were frequented by many European and American painters. Volendam is a fishing hamlet north of Amsterdam on the coast of the Zuider Zee that a contemporary British travel guide called “the manufactory of most of those Dutch pictorial scenes known the world over," and recommended its "quaint alleys, its magenta-clothed fishermen, its gaily dressed girls in striped shirts and winged caps."

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gerard C. Smith

  • Dimensions

    overall: 51 x 61.1 cm (20 1/16 x 24 1/16 in.)
    framed: 73.7 x 83.8 x 6.4 cm (29 x 33 x 2 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1973.70.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Volendam Street Scene, 1910

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Chapellier Galleries, New York), by 1969; Mr. [d. 1994] and Mrs. [d. 1991] Gerard C. Smith, Washington, D.C.; gift 1973 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1969

  • Robert Henri: Painter-Teacher-Prophet, New York Cultural Center, 1969, no. 53, repro.

  • American Art Selections, Chapellier Galleries, New York, 1969, no. 24, repro.

1977

  • Extended loan for use by Secretary Patricia Roberts Harris, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C., 1977-1979.

1981

  • Extended loan for use by Justice John Paul Stevens, The Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1981-1984.

1984

  • Robert Henri, Painter, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington; Pennsylvania State University Museum of Art, University Park; Cincinnati Art Museum; Phoenix Art Museum; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1984-1985, no. 66, repro.

1987

  • Extended loan for use by Ambassador John Shad, U.S. Embassy residence, The Hague, The Netherlands, 1987-1989.

1989

  • Extended loan for use by Ambassador Howard Wilkins, U.S. Embassy residence, The Hague, The Netherlands, 1989-1992.

1993

  • Extended loan for use by Secretary Michael Espy, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 1993-1995.

2005

  • Extended loan for use by Ambassador Craig R. Stapleton, U.S. Embassy residence, Paris, France, 2005-2009.

2009

  • Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880-1914, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah; Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati; The Grand Rapids Art Museum; Singer Museum, Laren, The Netherlands, 2009-2011, no. 20, repro.

Bibliography

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 174, repro.

1981

  • Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981:199, repro, 202.

1984

  • Perlman, Bennard B. Robert Henri, Painter. Exh. cat. Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, 1984: 110-111, no. 66, color repro.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 200, repro.

1997

  • Perlman, Bennard B., ed. Revolutionaries of Realism: The Letters of John Sloan and Robert Henri. Princeton, 1997: xi, 200 fig. 28.

1998

  • Stott, Annette. Holland Mania: The Unknown Dutch Period in American Art & Culture, New York, 1998: 50, repro.

2009

  • Stott, Annette. Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880-1914. Exh. cat. Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah; Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati; Grand Rapids Art Museum; Singer Laren Museum, The Netherlands, 2009-2011. Savannah, 2009: no. 20, 120, repro. (catalogue also published in Dutch in 2010: Dutch utopia : Amerikaanse kunstenaars in Nederland 1880-1914).

Inscriptions

by Violet Organ, lower left: ROBERT HENRI / VO

Wikidata ID

Q20191520

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