Children at Play

This small-scale scene of youngsters enjoying themselves in a seaside park on Boston’s North Shore reflects two abiding interests of Maurice Brazil Prendergast. The artist loved rich, deep colors, patterns and simplified forms, as well as the pleasures of modern life as enjoyed by his neighbors. The combination of decorative abstraction and representation gave Prendergast’s work both a mysteriousness and accessibility that was enjoyed by his own contemporaries, as well as subsequent generations of viewers.