Sands, Chatham

Margaret Jordan Patterson

"Sands, Chatham" is a color woodcut, done around 1914. The image measures 7-1/8 x 10-1/8" and is printed on a cream laid paper. This impression is not editioned nor signed (see below). There is professionally repaired small tear in the lower center that is undetectable in the image. The print is trimmed to leave about a 1/4 inch margin, which was typical of the time. The reference for "Sands, Chatham" is the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco catalog, #6916, page 216.

This rare woodcut was done around 1914 and is unsigned. At that time signing of prints was inconsistent, often not done unless requested, sent to an exhibition or sold. An impression of this print was exhibited in the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, where Patterson won an Honorable Mention for the 5 prints she exhibited.

Chatham, Massachusetts in known for its beautiful sand beaches, a destination in the summer for tourists from around the world. This quite well might be Cockle Cove Beach.

Margaret J. Patterson was born in Soerabaija, Java. She studied with Herman Dudley Murphy and Charles Herbert Woodbury in Boston, and Arthur Wesley Dow at Pratt Institute, New York. She became the Assistant Director of Drawing in 1909 for Boston Public Schools and was appointed as director in 1912. Patterson traveled to Italy and studied with Claudio Castelucho in 1912, as well as in Paris later. She first studied wood-block printing with Ethel Mars in Paris, where she eventually exhibited with the help of Mars at Galerie Levasque in 1913.

In 1915, she exhibited at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Patterson became the head of the art department at Dana Hall School, Wellesley, Massachusetts in the fall of 1920 and continue to teach there until the early 1940s.