The Avenue in the Rain

Painted in February 1917, The Avenue in the Rain captures Fifth Avenue on a grey, wet winter afternoon transformed by a forest of American flags. Childe Hassam, America's leading Impressionist, dissolves the familiar urban scene into shimmering reflections: the flags seem almost weightless, their red, white, and blue bleeding into the wet pavement below, while pedestrians and carriages become atmospheric suggestions rather than defined figures. The damp air softens every edge and merges sky, street, and flags into a single patriotic reverie.\n\nThe work belongs to Hassam's celebrated Flag series, in which he painted as many as thirty canvases between 1916 and 1919 depicting Manhattan streets dressed in national colors during wartime rallies and parades. The February 1917 date places it just two months before the United States entered the First World War, at a moment of intense public debate about America's role in the conflict. The painting's emotional warmth and luminous handling transformed a political gesture into a lyrical meditation on collective identity. It was donated to the White House in 1963 and has since hung in some of the building's most prominent rooms, including the Oval Office during the administrations of Clinton, Obama, Trump, and Biden—making it one of the most historically resonant artworks in the presidential collection.