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Frederick Childe Hassam (October 17, 1859 - August
27, 1935) was an United States|American
Impressionism|Impressionist painter.  He was born
in Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts|Dorchester
(Boston), Massachusetts.


Hassam left high school without graduating and
ended up working for a wood engraving|wood
engraver.  He attended drawing classes at the
Lowell Institute, a division of MIT, and was a
member of the Boston Art Club. He began his
artistic career as an illustration|illustrator and
watercolor painting|watercolorist.  By 1882 Hassam
was exhibiting publicly and had his first solo
exhibition, of watercolors, at the Williams and
Everett Gallery in Boston.  The following year he
was convinced by his friend Celia Thaxter to drop
his first name and thereafter was known as simply
"Childe Hassam."

Having had little formal art training previously,
Hassam went to Paris in 1886 to study figure
drawing and figure painting|painting at the
Académie Julian.  He studied under Gustave
Boulanger and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre.  But he
considered the education he received there
"superfluous."  What had a greater influence on
Hassam's work was the art he was exposed to in the
city's museums and galleries, especially the works
of the Impressionists.

Hassam returned to America and settled in New York
City in 1889.  He soon become close friends with
fellow artists J. Alden Weir and John Henry
Twachtman, whom he met through the American
Watercolor Society.  Hassam enthusiastically
painted the genteel urban atmosphere he discovered
in New York, which he greatly preferred to Paris.

He was the leader of the Ten American Painters
group who seceded from the Society of American
Artists in 1898.

He died in East Hampton (town), New York|East
Hampton, New York.

==References==
*Book reference | Author=Weinberg, H. Barbara |
Title=Childe Hassam: American Impressionist |
Publisher=New Haven: Yale University Press |
Year=2004 | ID=ISBN 1-58839-120-5
*Book reference | Author=Hiesinger, Ulrich W. |
Title=Impressionism in America: the Ten American
Painters | Publisher=Munich: Prestel-Verlag |
Year=1991 | ID=ISBN 3-7913-1142-5

==External Links==
*http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Hassam/hassam_ch
rono.asp Hassam's Life Chronology, from the Childe
Hassam: American Impressionist exhibit at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art|Met
*http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Hassam/hassam_vi
deo.asp Excerpt from a silent film about Hassam's
life