Maybe you have seen stories about the art that President Biden chose to have in the Oval Office. I am just going to take a minute to write about one of those works of art, The Avenue in the Rain by the American Impressionist painter, Childe Hassam. The painting, which has been in the White House Collection since the Kennedy Administration, had a prominent position on the wall of the Oval Office during the Obama Administration.
This work of art probably reminds you of paintings by Claude Monet, who also painted street scenes with flags in the Impressionist style he developed, for example his Rue Montorgueil in Paris (1878). Hassam painted his American version of the subject nearly 40 years later, in 1917, for distinctly patriotic purposes.
Hassam’s Avenue in the Rain is part of the Flag Series inspired by a “Preparedness Parade” that took place on 5th Avenue in New York City in 1916 to encourage the US involvement in World War I at a time when most Americans were isolationist. Hassam used a French style to support an allied relationship with the French, representing rows of American flags hanging along the street and reflected in the wet pavement below. This patriotic display has no overt references to the military, but rather symbolized the power and responsibility the United States would have in the world order.
