Luxembourg Gardens

1906

William Glackens

Artist, American, 1870 - 1938

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William Glackens’s Luxembourg Gardens celebrates a casual, everyday afternoon in a Parisian park. A smartly dressed boy sporting a dark hat and knee breeches anchors the scene, looking out at the viewer. Nearby, nursemaids attend to needlework or socialize with one another while children play. Dark tree trunks divide the social activity of the gardens while unifying the space through their visual repetition. Adding to the painting’s immediacy is the empty central space, creating a pathway to enter the gathering.

Glackens and his wife, the artist Edith Dimock Glackens, took a postponed honeymoon to Europe in 1906. During three productive weeks in Paris, Glackens worked on a series of canvases in Luxembourg Gardens, including this painting.

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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

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

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Luxembourg Gardens, 1906

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

On consignment from the artist to (Kraushaar Galleries, New York), by 1937; purchased April 1937 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1908

  • Possibly An Exhibition of Paintings by Arthur B. Davies, William J. Glackens, Robert Henri, Ernest LAwson, George B. Luks, Maurice B. Prendergast, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1908. no. 53.

1909

  • Possibly Newark Public Library, New Jersey, 1909, no. 7.

1935

  • Probably C.W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, New York, 1935, no. 27.

1937

  • Fifteenth Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1937, no. 367.

1938

  • William Glackens Memorial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1938-1939, no. 7.

1939

  • Memorial Exhibition of Works by William J. Glackens, Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, 1939, no. 44.

1940

  • Memorial Exhibition: Paintings and Drawings by William J. Glackens, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1940, no catalogue.

1945

  • Artists of the Philadelphia Press: William Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1945, no. 2, repro.

1946

  • Exhibition of 200 Years of American Painting, Tate Gallery, London, 1946, unpublished checklist.

1956

  • American Painting: Second Quarter of the 20th Century, Jacksonville Art Museum, Florida, 1956, no. 4.

1959

  • Loan Exhibition. Masterpieces of the Corcoran Gallery of Art: A Benefit Exhibition in Honor of the Gallery's Centenary, Wildenstein, New York, 1959, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1966

  • Past and Present: 250 Years of American Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, unpublished checklist.

  • Williams Glackens in Retrospect, City Art Museum, Saint Louis; National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1966-1967, no. 21, as In the Luxembourg Gardens.

1972

  • Conservation in the Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1972, unpublished checklist.

1976

  • Corcoran [The American Genius], Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1976, unnumbered catalogue.

1978

  • The William A. Clark Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 26 April - 16 July 1978, unnumbered catalogue.

1980

  • Guy Pène du Bois: Artist About Town, Corcoran Gallery of Art; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Mary and Leigh Block Gallery, Northwestern University, Evanston, 1980-1981, no. 95.

1985

  • Henri's Circle, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 20 April - 16 June 1985, unnumbered checklist.

1986

  • Artistic Transitions: From the Academy to Impressionism in American Art, Cummer Gallery of Art, Jacksonville, Florida, 1986-1987, no. 19, as In the Luxembourg Gardens.

1993

  • The Century Club Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, unpublished checklist.

1998

  • The Forty-Fifth Biennial: The Corcoran Collects, 1907–1998, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 17 July - 29 September 1998, unnumbered catalogue.

2003

  • The Impressionist Tradition in America, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 19 July 2003 - 18 October 2004, unpublished checklist.

2004

  • The Impressionist Tradition in America, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2003-2004, unpublished checklist.

  • Figuratively Speaking: The Human Form in American Art, 1770-1950, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2004-2005, unpublished checklist.

2005

  • Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 2005-2007, checklist no. 62.

2008

  • The American Evolution: A History through Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, unpublished checklist.

2009

  • American Paintings from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 6 June - 18 October 2009, unpublished checklist.

2013

  • American Journeys: Visions of Place, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 21 September 2013 - 28 September 2014, unpublished checklist.

2014

  • William Glackens, Museum of Art, Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale; Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York; Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, 2014-2015.

Bibliography

1947

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art. Handbook of the American Paintings in the Collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1947: 75.

1959

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art. Masterpieces of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1959: 61, repro.

2011

  • Roeder, Katherine. "William James Glackens, Luxembourg Gardens." In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Edited by Sarah Cash. Washington, 2011: 190-191, 275, repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: W[m?] Glackens

Wikidata ID

Q20191031

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