The Massachusetts North Shore has long been an artistic haven - a picturesque stretch of coastline from Boston to New Hampshire encompassing scenic beaches, quaint towns, and charming harbors. Impressions of the north shore brings together four prominent artists working along the coast during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Gertrude Beals Bourne, William Partridge Burpee, C.E.L. Green, and Edward A. Page, who captured the alluring beauty of the area in paintings, watercolors, and pastels.

The wide beaches, tidal marshes, and working fisherfolk of the North Shore drew in artists Burpee, Green, and Page, who painted impressionistic renditions of coastal scenery to much acclaim. These three artists, along with Nathaniel L. Berry, Edward Burrill, T. Clark Oliver, and Charles H. Woodbury, would eventually be termed the 'Lynn Beach Painters' – a group working in the area during the last two decades of the 19th century in a similar, regionally developed, style of impressionism.

A generation later, Boston-based watercolorist Gertrude Beals Bourne would continue to produce works based upon the unique beauty of the North Shore, with depictions of marshlands, fishing towns, and tidal flats, influenced by her studies of contemporary European and American masters.