Maurice Brazil Prendergast

The style, which created the participants of the new group, will be called the "school of trash cans." Comparison with the great impressionists sounds not entirely appropriate, since the style of the "Eight" only preceded the development of American painting, independent and self-valuable. Those were searches in the darkness, in attempts to find oneself.


Maurice Brazil Prendergast born in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada October 10, 1858, but the child moved with his parents to Boston.


Here he met with young artist and patron of art Sarah Chowayte Sears, who gave him patronage and materially supported during her studies in Paris. Maurice studied in Paris at the studio of Colarossi and the Academy of Juliana.

During one of his first trips to Paris, he met with Canadian artist James Morris, who introduced him the English avant-garde art of Walter Sickert, Beardsley Aubrey and James McNeill Whistler. These artists influenced the creativity and style of Maurice. Later, he met Bonnard and finally moved to the camp of the post-impressionists.


A trip to Venice in 1898 after seeing the creativity of Vittore Viaggio exposes his picturesque style to some changes, the paintings began to have an even more complex rhythmic series. In the 1920s Maurice was considered a member of a group of American artists, called the "school of garbage cans," although in his manner was much thinner and more delicate.


Despite the poor health that hampers his work, Prendergast continues to showcase his work in major exhibitions for the rest of his life.


A retrospective of his works was exhibited in the gallery of Joseph Brammer in 1921, but the Metropolitan Museum refused to hold a memorial retrospective of Prendergast after his death in 1924 due to the too demanding and forward-looking views of museum critics.


His first commemorative exhibition was held ten years later at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. He developed his own individual style - boldly contrasting colors and flat shapes, rhythmically organized into a single whole. His paintings were aptly characterized as tapestries, reminiscent of a mosaic.

Maurice remained a bachelor throughout his life. He was a member of the short-lived association of artists "The Big Eight", but the delicacy of his compositions and the mosaic of works has nothing to do with the philosophy of the group.