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Childe Hassam (1859–1935)
Allies Day, May 1917, 1917
Oil on canvas; 36 1/2 x 30 1/4 in. (92.7 x 76.8 cm)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Ethelyn McKinney in memory of her brother, Glenn Ford McKinney 1943.9.1
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Painted a month after the United States entered World War I, this canvas is the most famous of the thirty views of New York's flag-draped Fifth Avenue that Hassam made between 1916 and 1919. One critic exclaimed, "Mr. Hassam has done for the flag what Monet did for the haystack." The harmonious triad of red, white, and blue flags symbolizes Allied cooperation. It also signifies Hassam's patriotism, indicated by the ascendancy of the Stars and Stripes; his appreciation
of his Anglo-Saxon heritage, signified by the Union flag; and the lasting debt to Paris, encoded in the French tricolor, that he shared with countless American artists.
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