May Day, Central Park (1901): Art, History and Details

May Day, Central Park (1901) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Maurice Prendergast (American, born Newfoundland [now Canada], 1858–1924).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Maurice Prendergast worked primarily in watercolor, and Central Park—seen in this drawing— was one of his favorite subjects. He regularly visited the popular public area in New York City during the early 1900s, while he was living in Boston. Prendergast's depictions of Central Park often focus on festivities and celebrations, continuing a theme he had explored in other cities, such as Paris and Venice. Here, the artist depicted children celebrating May Day by dancing with colorful ribbons around a Maypole on a sunny day. He worked with rapid, loose marks, leaving portions of the paper visible to create highlights throughout. Prendergast was drawn to this subject, and revisited it many times.

Object facts

• Title: May Day, Central Park
• Date: 1901
• Creator attribution: Maurice Prendergast (American, born Newfoundland [now Canada], 1858–1924)
• Culture: America
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor over graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 35.4 x 50.6 cm (13 15/16 x 19 15/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - American 19th Century
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1926.17

A detail from the museum

Maurice Prendergast studied in Paris and was influenced by the French Impressionists and their focus on modern urban life.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.
• Wattenmaker, Richard J. "Maurice Prendergast." Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin 40, no. 1 (1982-1983): 25-37.
• Milliken, William Mathewson. "The Maurice Prendergast Memorial Exhibition." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 13, no. 2 (February 1926): 40-41.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.