The Avenue in the Rain is a 1917 oil painting by the American Impressionist painter Childe Hassam. It depicts Fifth Avenue in New York City in the rain, draped with U.S. flags. The painting is one of six works by Hassam in the permanent art collection of the White House in Washington, D.C.
Between 1916 and 1919, Hassam completed as many as thirty paintings showing city streets decorated with flags. [1] Hassam called this series "the flag series." [2] The Avenue in the Rain dates to February 1917, a time when patriotic fervor was rising and about two months before the United States entered the First World War. The previous month, Germany had extended its unrestricted submarine warfare to neutral ships, including American vessels. The Zimmermann Telegram became public knowledge at the end of February 1917, and the country declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917.
The painting measures 42 by 22.25 inches (106.7 cm × 56.5 cm) and is dominated by tones of blue and red. A large U.S. flag is depicted in the foreground, while a number of smaller flags fill the surrounding space and line Fifth Avenue into the background. Several dark figures in the middle distance hold umbrellas. The flags seem to float in mid-air, hanging from poles that project from unseen buildings. Their images are reflected on the wet street and sidewalk. In painting this work and others in the series, Hassam may have been influenced by two similar pieces by Claude Monet depicting national celebrations in Paris on June 30, 1878.
The painting was donated to the White House in 1963 by Thomas Mellon Evans and hung between the windows in John F. Kennedy's blue-themed President's Bedroom (now a private sitting room, adjacent to the Yellow Oval Room on the second floor). It was in the President's Dining Room for many years and hung in the Oval Office during Bill Clinton's, Barack Obama's, and Donald Trump’s terms, as well as currently under Joe Biden's term.
A replica of the painting has been featured in multiple fictitious oval offices including the CBS show Madam Secretary and the NBC show The West Wing. It was also located in a hallway in House of Cards.
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Frederick Childe Hassam was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums. He produced over 3,000 paintings, oils, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs over the course of his career, and was an influential American artist of the early 20th century.
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July Fourteenth, Rue Daunou, 1910 is an early-20th-century painting by American impressionist Childe Hassam. Done in oil on canvas, the painting depicts the celebration of Bastille Day in Paris. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Spring Morning in the Heart of the City is an 1890 oil-on-canvas painting by the American Impressionist artist Childe Hassam which is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York city.
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The Rue Mosnier with Flags is an 1878 oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet, showing the eponymous Parisian street, decorated with French flags for the first national holiday on 30 June 1878, the Fête de la Paix. The Fête de la Paix was held during that year's Exposition Universelle, which together marked France's recovery after the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune. The holiday was moved to 14 July in 1880 to become Bastille Day. The painting is held by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.