The son of a wealthy merchant, Childe Hassam briefly designed woodblocks for a local wood engraver in 1876. He then established himself as a freelance illustrator while attending classes at the Boston Art Club and the Lowell Institute in 1877 and 1878. The following year, he took painting lessons from the Munich-trained artist Ignaz Marcel Gaugengigl.
By the early 1880s Hassam had established a Boston studio, supporting himself as an illustrator of children's books and magazine articles. In these early years, his preferred medium for rural landscapes was watercolor. His first solo exhibition, held at the Williams and Everett Gallery, Boston, in 1882, included fifty watercolors, many of which had been executed on Nantucket island the previous summer. In the summer of 1883, he and fellow artist Edmund H. Garrett toured Great Britain and the Continent. In 1885, upon his return to the United States, he began working in oils to capture the effects of light and atmosphere on Boston's more elegant streets.
Hassam was in Paris from 1886 to 1889, studying at the Académie Julian under Gustav Boulanger, Henri Lucien Doucet, and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre and exhibiting in the Salons of 1887 and 1888. In response to French Impressionism, his brushstroke became more textural and his palette more vivid. He eventually was recognized as the most French of the American Impressionists, using brilliant light and dabs of paint in his charming scenes of gentility on avenues, in parks, and at coastal resorts.
Hassam settled in New York upon his return from Paris, becoming actively involved in that city's rich art community and forming close friendships with John Twachtman and J. Alden Weir. He had first participated in an Academy annual exhibition in 1883. His next appearance was in 1886, and he remained a consistent contributor for the rest of his career. He was an active member of the Society of American Artists, withdrawing only in 1897 to help found the group later known as the Ten American Painters. His alignment with the Ten, which some regarded as opposing the Academy's hegemony, may be the reason for his relatively late induction as an Associate. Nonetheless, he was the first Impressionist to win an Academy award, receiving the Thomas B. Clarke Prize in 1905. Additionally, he won the Benjamin Altman Prize in the winter exhibitions of 1922 and 1924 and the annual of 1926 and the Saltus Medal for Merit in the annual of 1935.
A great and convivial traveler, Hassam returned frequently to Europe. From the mid-1880s until 1916, he also spent summers at Eastern Seaboard resorts that were popular among artists. Before the turn of the century, he was inspired by the lush wildflower garden and light on Appledore Island, off the New Hampshire coast, painting en plein air. During the 1900s and 1910s, Gloucester, Massachusetts, Provincetown, Rhode Island, and Cos Cob and Old Lyme, Connecticut, provided scenes in which he explored his New England heritage. From 1916 to 1919, he created a series of flag paintings of New York that celebrated his love for the city and reflected his patriotism. Following the purchase of a home in East Hampton on Long Island, Hassam divided his time between that town and New York City for the remainder of his life.
