"This is the first book to explore in depth the development of America's premier Impressionist group, which formed amid great controversy in 1897 following the secession of its members from the once progressive Society of American Artists. Childe Hassam, John H. Twachtman, William Merritt Chase (who joined the group after Twachtman's death), Edmund C. Tarbell, Frank W. Benson, Joseph R. De Camp, Thomas W. Dewing, Edward E. Simmons, Willard L. Metcalf, Robert Reid, and J. Alden Weir ... The author discusses the beginning of the ten artists' activities as members of a sweeping reform movement at the time of the nation's Centennial Exhibition in 1876, traces their emergence as Impressionist painters in the 1880s and 1890s, and charts the course of their mature careers as members of the Ten between 1897 and 1917."--Jacket.