Palisades Amusement Park (Primary Title)
William J. Glackens, American, 1870 - 1938 (Artist)
An original member of the Ashcan group of urban realists as well as the rebellious Eight, William Glackens began his career as an artist-reporter working for newspapers and magazines. When he turned to painting, under the guidance of Robert Henri, he retained his sketch-like aesthetic, capturing vivid crowd scenes in New York’s streets and parks. In this later work, the influence of French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir influenced Glackens’s loosely painted, vividly colored scenes of popular amusements, such as this one in Bergen County, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan. The Palisades Amusement Park comprised over thirty acres, but in this painting Glackens highlighted the same flag-topped towers found on contemporary publicity materials for the site.
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