Australian Impressionists like Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin, worked en plein air to depict the lovely coastal landscapes of Sydney's Coogee, Melbourne's Brighton and their de rigueur tableaus of primly dressed beach goers.
While the plein-air paintings of the Impressionists and post-Impressionists seem studied in comparison with the informality of these watercolors, we search the Sargents for evidence that their creator was aware of the developments in abstract art during the first decades of the 20th century.