Three Little Girls in Red 1895

Curator: The overall tone feels muted, almost secretive, doesn't it? Like a scene glimpsed through fog. Editor: Indeed. This is Maurice Prendergast's "Three Little Girls in Red," an oil executed around 1895. He captures a street scene with an unusual composition. Curator: Composition is right. Look at how the figures are arranged. The repetition of shapes, particularly the red cloaks, creates a rhythm, a visual beat that structures the entire work. Editor: Prendergast was working at a fascinating moment in urban history. Consider the growth of cities at this time. Genre paintings, like this, were beginning to document the rising role of public space, the promenade as a spectacle for the social classes. Curator: But consider the surface. It's quite textured, almost crusty. Look at the way the brushstrokes build up the cobblestones underfoot. The materiality is very present; each stroke contributing to the atmospheric effect. Editor: Those cloaks are striking. That splash of red in what is otherwise a subdued palette has real cultural power, symbolizing childhood innocence, or perhaps something else? We know in Europe red was a mark of aristocracy...it contrasts nicely against the subdued palette. The faceless, indistinct figures may signal their ambiguous place in this class system, too. Curator: The lack of individualized features reinforces a sense of universality. The painting transcends portraiture, becoming an exploration of form and color, a study in contrasts. Editor: And Prendergast was keen on printmaking, too. I am keen to examine that background. I sense that preoccupation and those themes in the layers and planes represented in oil, and on the canvas itself. He is an observer looking, watching, and recording. A new way to capture urban experience. Curator: An experience we can now also share through his brilliant visual vocabulary. Editor: An interesting way to witness the growth of society at the turn of the century!