Garden of the Girls

A leader of the New Hope School of Pennsylvania Impressionism, Edward Redfield won acclaim in national and international exhibitions early in the twentieth century. These artists, working along the Delaware River in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, frequently worked en plein air, capturing their subjects and painting on location rather than painting from memory in a studio.

Garden of the Girls dates from a particularly inspired period when the artist and his family began spending summers in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. There he found inspiration in New England coastal views and lush gardens, like the one seen here—a sharp contrast to the Pennsylvania winter scenes for which he was quite well known. The dazzling effect of Redfield’s characteristic thick and quick paint application is in full force in this work, suggesting the frenzied pace at which he captured all the elements of a bright, beautiful Maine day.