At the outbreak of World War One, Walter  began spending her summers teaching and painting at the popular artists' community of Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she had access to locations such as Good Harbor Beach and Bass Rocks. It is in her paintings during this time that she started to incorporate a more impressionist feel using loose brushstrokes, but with a palette of intense colors, reminiscent of the Fauve painters. One can see these qualities in her charming watercolor, At the Beach (possibly Bass Rocks, Gloucester), featuring a crowd of beachgoers enjoying the warm sunshine and cool ocean breezes of a Cape Ann summer. The fluidity of the watercolor medium allowed her to render the rippling ocean currents and billowing clouds, as well as the throng of figures clustered together on shore.

More information about this painting...

Provenance:

Estate of Martha Walter
With David David Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Eventually to private collection, Rockport, Massachusetts
To collection, Beverly, Massachusetts, by 2018
To collection, New Haven, Connecticut, 2018

Labels:

1). (stamp on old backing board) David David Art Gallery / Philadelphia / Estate of Martha Walter / # (blank)
2). Exhibited / Rockport Art Association / “Strokes of Genius” / October 10 – November 14, 2015 / 12 Main Street Rockport, MA 01966

Exhibitions:

Strokes of Genius: Women in the Arts, Past and Present, Rockport Art Association, October 10 – November 14, 2015, illus. p. 47