: The Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme Street, will open "'A
Pretty Fine Old Town': Childe Hassam in Old Lyme" on June 5. This
new exhibition features more than 20 Hassam paintings from
museums and private collections and is designed to give a picture
of the artist's pivotal contribution to the Lyme Art Colony as a
leading center of Impressionism. The show will run through
September 26.
After Childe Hassam (1858-1935) first visited Old Lyme in the
summer of 1903, he wrote to his artist friend J. Alden Weir in
Branchville, Conn., "We are up here in another old corner of
Connecticut, and it is very much like your country. There are
some very large oaks and chestnuts and many fine hedges. 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." He
stayed at Florence Griswold's boarding house, home of the Lyme
Art Colony, and now the Florence Griswold Museum.
Hassam's charm and easy manner made him a favorite of "Miss
Florence," as Griswold was affectionately known. During his
frequent trips to Old Lyme over the next several years Hassam was
given the best studio on the property, next to the garden
overlooking the Lieutenant River. A painting of his studio by
Harry Hoffman is in the exhibition.
Hassam was staying at the Florence Griswold House in 1905 when he
began to work on the monumental painting "June," a highlight of
the exhibition. This mural-size painting portrays three nudes
among the mountain laurel bushes on the banks of the Lieutenant
River. It is on loan from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters in New York and has not been on public view in more than
90 years, when an entire gallery was devoted to it at the
Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.
Educational programming will be highlighted by performances in
July of an original one-act play, Hassam in the Garden.
For tickets call 860-434-5542, ext 111. For information,
www.flogris.org.
