Charles Webster Hawthorne, born in 1872, studied at the National Academy of Design, Art Students League and Shinnecock Summer Art School with William chase. Hawthorne was a specialist in portraits and genre paintings and set up a colony of artists in Provincetown, MA. Painters came to his Cape Cod School of Art, founded in 1899, of which he was the director until death. Hawthorne was a naturalist painter with an Impressionistic style, staying within the academic traditions that other Modernists rejected. It was several years before Hawthorne's harsh treatment of struggling lifestyles was critically accepted. In 1898, he went to Holland and was influenced by the tonal style of Franz Hals. Hawthorne also painted introspective portraits of women and children with molded, conservative style.

Biography courtesy of The Caldwell Gallery, www.antiquesandfineart.com/caldwell