Editor's note: The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of
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following article or essay. If you have questions or comments regarding
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Childe Hassam and Connecticut
Impressionism
To coincide with the
Childe Hassam retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
in the summer of 2004, three Connecticut museums are presenting exhibitions
on this versatile American Impressionist, who was an influential figure
in the art colonies of Connecticut for more than 20 years at the turn of
the last century.
The Bush-Holley Historic Site in the Cos Cob section of
Greenwich, the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, and the Wadsworth Atheneum
Museum of Art in Hartford are focusing on different aspects of Hassam's
career and his longtime presence in Connecticut. Exhibition details
follow:
- Childe Hassam and Connecticut Impressionism
- June 11 - October 3
- Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
-
- Works by Henry Ward Ranger, John Henry Twachtman, Willard
Metcalf, Charles H. Davis, and Emil Carlsen, shown alongside paintings
and etchings by Hassam, reveal their stylistic shift from the muted tonalism
of the Barbizon school to Impressionism. Comparisons between Hassam's
idealized images of women in rural and urban interiors are also highlighted,
such as The Goldfish Window (1916) from The Currier Gallery of Art,
with The Flag Outside Her Window (1917) that is in the Atheneum's
permanent collection. Organized by Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Krieble
Curator of American Painting and Sculpture, the exhibition comprises 25
paintings and 25 prints. (right: Childe Hassam (1859 - 1935), The
Goldfish Window, 1916, oil on canvas; 33 x 49 inches, The Currier Gallery
of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire -- Hassam began painting The Goldfish
Window at the Holley House in Cos Cob. It is among the major works
in Childe Hassam and Connecticut Impressionism at the Wadsworth
Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, June 11 October 3.)
- Childe Hassam: Impressions of Cos Cob
- June 1 - September 5
- The William Hegarty Gallery, Bush-Holley Historic Site
- The Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich
-
- In 1915, during one of his last visits to Cos Cob, Hassam
took up etching under the guidance of printmaker Kerr Eby. In a series
of prints Hassam considered his finest, he captured the play of sunlight
over boats, barns, and old houses, and portrayed serene women inside the
Holley House. Etchings of Cos Cob subjects by Hassam and Eby are
shown in the village where they were created, along with a sampling of
the oils, pastels, and watercolors Hassam produced there. (right:
Childe Hassam (1859 - 1935), The Mantelpiece, ca. 1914, oil on panel;
14 x 16 inches, Collection of Mrs. Hugh B. Vanderbilt -- This charming
oil sketch of a woman before a fireplace in the Holley House is featured
in Childe Hassam: Impressions of Cos Cob at The William Hegarty
Gallery, Bush-Holley Historic Site, The Historical Society of the Town
of Greenwich, June 1 September 5.)
-
- "A Pretty Fine Old Town": Childe Hassam
in Old Lyme
- June 5 - September 26
- Florence Griswold Museum
-
- When Hassam first visited Florence Griswold's boarding
house in the summer of 1903, he wrote to J. Alden Weir in Branchville,
Connecticut, "Lyme, or Old Lyme as it is usually called, is at the
mouth of the Connecticut River and it really is a pretty fine old town."
The exhibition reveals the breadth of Hassam's Old Lyme work in paintings,
photographs, letters, and other documents. A highlight is the painting
June (1905) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Never before on public view, this large oil (84 x 84 in.) features three
nudes on the banks of the Lieutenant River in Old Lyme. (right:
Childe Hassam (1859 - 1935), June, 1905, oil on canvas; 84 x 84
inches
- American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York -- This mural-sized
oil of three nudes among the mountain laurel bushes on the banks of the
Lieutenant River goes on public view for the first time in "A Pretty
Fine Old Town": Childe Hassam in Old Lyme, an exhibition at the
Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, June 5 - September 26.)
About the Artist:
Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts into a family with deep
New England roots, Childe Hassam (1859 - 1935) began his career as a commercial
illustrator in Boston. He moved to Paris in 1886 to study at the Académie
Julian, and by the following year was painting modern subjects with the
high-keyed palette and broken brush strokes of the French Impressionists.
Returning to the United States in 1889, Hassam soon made New York his home
base, as did his friend and colleague J. Alden Weir. Their mutual
friend, John Henry Twachtman, taught in New York but lived in Greenwich,
Connecticut.
By 1894 he was visiting Weir and Twachtman in Cos Cob,
where they were teaching. There Hassam painted views of the town's
colonial era buildings and picturesque harbor. After Twachtman's untimely
death in 1902, Hassam visited other rural retreats in Connecticut.
In 1903 he joined the Old Lyme Art Colony, which had been founded four years
earlier by painter Henry Ward Ranger as a center for Barbizon painting.
Soon after Hassam's arrival, the muted tonalism and realism of the Barbizon
school gave way to the brighter palette and looser brushwork of Impressionism.
Although Hassam helped to introduce the advanced style
of Impressionism to America, his art celebrated an American past and his
own New England heritage. From landscapes and nautical scenes, to
intimate depictions of women and children, and to historic Yankee architecture,
these nostalgic images of old New England are more popular today than ever
before.
Editor's note: RLM readers may also enjoy these articles and essays:
- In and Out of California: Travels of
American Impressionists; essay by Deborah Epstein Solon
- Tom K. Enman: Southern California Impressionist
(5/97)
- All Things Bright and Beautiful:
California Impressionist Paintings from the Irvine Museum (3/10/98)
- Art Colonies and American Impressionists
(9/1/98)
- American Impressionism from the
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery (10/98)
- A Century of Impressionism on Cape Cod
(7/6/99)
- Visions of Home: American Impressionist
Images of Suburban Leisure and Country Comfort (7/11/99)
- Faces of Impressionism: Portraits from
American Collections (8/6/99)
- American Impressionism to Modernism:
A Brief History by Patricia Jobe Pierce (9/10/99)
- John Twachtman: An American Impressionist
(2/17/00)
- Light Shines on Frank W. Benson: American
Impressionist (9/19/00)
- American Impressionists Abroad and at
Home: Paintings from the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (11/18/00)
- The Cos Cob Art Colony: Impressionists
on the Connecticut Shore (12/1/00)
- Theodore Robinson: Pioneer of American
Impressionism, by D. Scott Atkinson (4/19/01)
- The Cos Cob Art Colony: Impressionists
on the Connecticut Shore (6/18/01)
- Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and
the Eucalyptus School in Southern California, essay by Nancy Dustin Wall
Moure (6/28/01)
- The Development of Southern California
Impressionism, essay by Jean Stern (7/3/01)
- Towards Impressionism in Northern California,
essay by Raymond L. Wilson (7/7/01)
- Excerpts from the exhibition catalogue,
American Impressionism, by William Gerdts and the Henry Art Gallery
(7/24/01)
- American Impressionism Goes West, essay
by Charles C. Eldredge, PhD (8/17/01)
- Impressionism Transformed: The Paintings
of Edmund C. Tarbell (8/24/01)
- American Impressionism: Paintings of
Promise; essay by David R. Brigham (5/16/02)
- Albert Henry Krehbiel (1873-1945): American
Impressionist, Muralist and Art Educator; article by Donald T. Ryan, Jr
(5/25/02)
- Impressionist Jewels: The Paintings
of Martha Walter, article by W Douglass Paschall (11/12/02)
- In and Out of California: Travels of
American Impressionists (11/21/02)
- Impressionism in California, 1890-1930; essay
by Jean Stern (7/30/03)
- Impressionist Style in Perspective; essay by
Jean Stern, from the catalogue "California Impressionists" (11/4/03)
- Landscape of Light: Impressionism in California;
essay by Jean Stern, from the catalogue "Impressions of California:
Early Currents in Art 1850-1950" (12/26/03)
- Childe Hassam, American Impressionist (1/2/04)
- American Impressions, 1865-1935: Prints, Drawings,
and Watercolors from the Collection (1/2/04)
- Earth, River, and Light: Masterworks of Pennsylvania
Impressionism (1/21/04)
Read more articles and essays concerning this institutional
source by visiting the sub-index page for the Wadsworth
Atheneum Museum of Art in Resource
Library Magazine
Search for more
articles and essays on American art in Resource Library. See America's Distinguished Artists for biographical information on historic artists.
This page was originally published in 2004 in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information.
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