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Edward Henry Potthast
American, 1857-1927
In the Dog Days
Signed E. Potthast (ll); signed and titled on the reverse
Oil on masonite
11 7/8 x 15 7/8 inches

Provenance:
Spanierman Gallery, New York

Literature:
Patricia Jobe Pierce, Edward Henry Potthast: More than One Man, Hingham, Mass.: Pierce Galleries, 2006, pl. 43, ill.

In the Dog Days depicts a carefree beach scene that could easily take place at Coney Island or the Rockaways, both regular destinations for the artist. When he first arrived in New York, Potthast had supported himself as an illustrator, an experience that left him able to deftly describe a moment with swift strokes. Here, his fluid brushwork and vibrant palette lend the painting a modern vitality. Potthast conveys the pleasures of a romp in a surf teeming with revellers. A few onlookers occupy the foreground, facing into the composition. With them, we become voyeurs, regarding the boisterous group seeking relief in the turbulent water from the oppressive heat of the city.

John Wilson has suggested that Potthast's beach scenes may have been inspired by a popular 1909 exhibition at the Hispanic Society of America of the work of Joaquin Sorolla. Included in the exhibition, which introduced the Spaniard's work to a wide American audience, were beach subjects executed in a fluid, impressionistic manner evocative of that of Roderic O'Conor, whom Potthast had met in Grez, France twenty years prior. [John Wilson, Edward Henry Potthast: American Impressionist, New York: Gerald Peters Gallery, 1998, p. 15]