Style Imitating Art: Strawberry Tea Set by Childe Hassam

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Terri of MeadowTree Style, and Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as curator, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the curator by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the curator will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join! You are invited to share your images on Instagram or other social media platforms. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Terri, and Shelbee or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

The Inspiration Artwork

The inspiration artwork was chosen by Terri. You can read why she picked this work here.

Strawberry Tea Set by Childe Hassam (Oil on canvas, 1912)

About the Artist: Childe Hassam

Frederick Childe Hassam was an American Impressionist painter born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 17, 1859, to Frederick Fitch Hassam, a cutlery businessman with moderate success and a large collection of art and antiques, and Rosa Delia Hawthorne, who shared common ancestry with American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne. His mother was a native of Maine and his father claimed descent from a seventeenth-century English immigrant named Horsham whose name had been corrupted over time to Hassam.

The younger Frederick Hassam was known to his family and friends as Childe, a name he inherited from an uncle. Childe demonstrated an early interest in art while attending The Mather School, the oldest public elementary school in America, but his parents took little notice of his adolescent talents. When he reached high school, Childe excelled at swimming and boxing, but he left high school after two years at the age of 17 to help support his family after the Great Boston Fire of 1872 destroyed a large portion of Boston’s commercial district including his father’s business. His uncle had offered to pay for him to attend Harvard, but Childe refused opting instead to work in the accounting department of the publishing firm Little, Brown & Company. During this time, Hassam began studying wood engraving which led to his employment with an engraver where he produced designs for commercial engravings. He also began to paint artistically around this time. Watercolor was his preferred medium and he focused heavily on outdoor studies. In 1879, he began producing oil paintings as well.

In 1882, Hassam became a freelance illustrator establishing his own studio where he specialized in illustrating children’s stories for major magazine publications. He also began attending drawing classes at the Lowell Institute and life painting classes at the Boston Art Club around this time. He had his first solo exhibition in 1883 where he displayed his watercolors at the Williams and Everett Gallery in Boston. In the summer of 1883, he embarked on a two month study trip to Europe with a fellow Boston Art Club member. Then in 1884, his friend Celia Thaxter convinced him to officially drop his first name and he became professionally known as Childe Hassam at that time.

After a several year courtship, Hassam married a family friend, Kathleen Maude Doane, in February 1884. Throughout their marriage, she ran the household, tended to the domestic tasks, and handled travel arrangements, but very little else is known about their private life together. They moved to Paris in 1886 so Hassam could study painting and figure drawing at the prestigious Académie Julian. They returned to the United States in 1889, taking up residence in New York City.

In 1897, Hassam was the most radical member of a secessionist group of Impressionist artists who broke away from the Society of American Artists to form a new artist society known as The Ten. Their intention was to create an exhibition society that placed high value on originality, imagination, and quality. The group achieved popular and critical success that lasted twenty years before dissolving.

In 1904, after a brief period of midlife depression, the 45 year old Hassam committed to a healthier lifestyle which included a return to swimming and eventually led to a spiritual and artistic rejuvenation. By 1909, Hassam was achieving great commercial success earning as much as $6,000 per painting (approximately $180,000 today). Hassam and his wife purchased a home in East Hampton, New York, in 1919.

The 1920s saw a boom in the post-war art market allowing Hassam to command higher prices for his work. The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts awarded him the Gold Medal of Honor for lifetime achievement in 1920 and he continued to receive numerous other awards throughout the decade. During his final years, Hassam traveled very infrequently. He died in East Hampton, New York, on August 27, 1935, at the age of 75.

The 1960s saw a revival of interest in American Impressionism and the modern art world considered Hassam as one of the “abandoned geniuses”. By the 1970s, French Impressionist paintings had reached stratospheric prices which renewed an interest in the works of Hassam and other American Impressionists.

About the Artwork: “Strawberry Tea Set”

Hassam is probably most widely known for his Flag Series, which is a set of approximately 30 paintings created between 1916 and 1919, depicting flag decorated New York City streets during World War I. The history of this series and Hassam’s involvement in the war effort is really fascinating.

But this post is about a different Hassam work, Strawberry Tea Set, an oil on canvas produced in 1912. The painting measures 36 11/16 inches x 37 15/16 inches (93.19 cm x 96.36 cm) and depicts a female figure standing in front of a window admiring her tea set.

Sometime around 1910, Hassam began a series of paintings featuring female figures within the comfort of their domestic interiors. One art critic coined these paintings as the “window series” because the figure is always placed, either sitting or standing, in front of or next to a window flooded with sunlight. The windows will sometimes offer a view of the city while other works, like Strawberry Tea Set, feature drapes that filter the sunlight and obstruct the outside city view.

Hassam generally paints very little of the surrounding room except for a polished table that reflects the light and provides the surface for various domestic items such as a vase filled with flowers, a platter of fruit, or a strawberry tea set. The females in the paintings are never in an active state, but rather they are engaged in quiet contemplation or thoughtful examination of an object. She is generally dressed in loose fitting clothing in a style that depicts upper-class women in their elegant and costly homes.

Hassam emphasized mood through the evocative lighting in the room combined with the introspective attitude of the female figure. In Strawberry Tea Set, the figure is slightly larger than in most of his other window paintings. He composed her with heavy brushstrokes creating the image of a strong and solid woman set against a daring color palette that combines a bluish green minty color with ocher and purple highlights and a touch of pure white carried throughout.

Strawberry Tea Set belongs to the Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection and is currently not on public view.

References/Resources

• Childe Hassam: Wikipedia
• National Gallery of Art: Childe Hassam
• The Met: Childe Hassam (1859–1935)
• Frederick Childe Hassam
• Smithsonian American Art Museum: Childe Hassam
• Google Arts & Culture: Strawberry Tea Set
• The Flag Paintings of Childe Hassam
• LACMA: Strawberry Tea Set

About My Outfit Inspired by “Strawberry Tea Set”

This outfit began with the $3 thrifted minty green polka dot kimono. And what I originally imagined in my head was absolutely nothing like the outfit I ended up wearing.

I envisioned a long, flowy, sheer ivory dress underneath the kimono with some sort of delicate slipper like shoes on my feet. I have a few sheer ivory dresses but one is particularly reminiscent of the 1910s so I started with that one. The dress was great. The dress and the kimono together was a hot mess. And I had my head and heart set on the kimono, so the dress got ditched.

I tried a few more dresses and a couple of skirts before I finally accepted the fact that this kimono does not and will not pair with anything loose and flowy without taking me straight into the Village of Frump. While I don’t mind visiting Frump every now and then, it really isn’t my favorite place to be. I don’t feel very comfortable there so I try to stay away. In order to get out of Frump, I had to shift gears.

I struggled with this outfit much more than I usually do. After many wrong turns, I eventually ended up with this combination of white flared denim, a white eyelet cropped top, white ankle boots, a mint green belt, and pearl earrings. I recently rediscovered this very old Talbots neckerchief covered in a pink tea (of coffee) set print and I absolutely had to incorporate it somehow. The colors were not very cohesive with the rest of my outfit, so I decided to tie it on my belt loop as a little statement accessory.

I originally chose a vintage inspired pearl necklace which looked just fine. But then I got out the children’s tea sets for props and had the crazy thought to turn a miniature tea cup into a pendant. At first, I was disappointed that I don’t own an actual adult sized tea set, but the miniature sets worked out even better in staying true to my quirky little life. The tea cup turned out to be too heavy to wear on an actual necklace, so I made my own with an ivory ribbon.

Here are some close up photos of our mini tea sets. I bought the polka dot set for Archie when he was just a toddler. He always enjoyed having tea parties and loved the rose tea set from my childhood which has lost many of its pieces over the last four decades. I was cracking up at my kids when we brought these tea sets out from basement storage. They immediately set up a tea party for themselves, filling the little cups with milk and sugar, at 9 and 11 years old! It was the darn cutest and silliest thing and it pulled hard on my heartstrings. I am so glad that my kids still enjoy make believe play. I hope that playful creativity never goes away.

This was a challenging but fun style prompt. How do you think I did?

Be sure to check out Terri’s interpretation of the artwork as well as Salazar’s take on it. And please visit Terri on Wednesday, July 13, 2022, to see her review post of outfit submissions. If you want to participate, you still have time! Terri needs your photos by Tuesday, July 12, 2022, at 10:00 p.m. EST to be featured in her post. 

Keeping it on the edge,

Shelbee

Linking up with these Fabulous Link Parties.

Outfit Details: Jeans and Shirt-Charlotte Russe / Kimono-Thrifted / Scarf-Talbots / Boots, Earrings, Belt, and Miniature Tea Sets-Old