In the Park

In 1910, Hassam and his wife Kathleen Doan traveled to Paris. This scene could have been set in one of the urban gardens there – or in his home city of New York City. He loathed the way that rapid urban development blotted out the green space around his Manhattan studio. In some works, he edited out or minimized the skyscrapers at the edge of city parks. Made after he committed himself to wellness following a period of depression and heavy drinking, the scene may express the renewed feeling he had for life and the outdoors.