Coast Scene, Isles of Shoals

The Isles of Shoals—a small archipelago off the New Hampshire and Maine coast—attracted Hassam annually from the late 1880s through the early 1900s, where he spent summers painting with the poet Celia Thaxter at her famous flower garden. After Thaxter's death in 1894, Hassam continued visiting the islands, shifting his attention from the garden to the surrounding sea and rocky coastline. This 1901 canvas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art shows the island's rugged northeastern exposure, where the Atlantic horizon provided a luminous backdrop for his most expansive coastal paintings.

The coastal scene is rendered with Hassam's characteristic American Impressionist touch—short, varied strokes of saturated color laid side by side to capture the flickering interplay of sunlight on water and rock. The high-keyed palette of blue, green, and white reflects his sustained study of the ocean's luminosity under full summer sunlight.