"Bowl of Goldfish," Childe
Hassam, 1912. From the collection of the Ball State University
Art Gallery, Muncie, Ind.
By Stephen May
NEW YORK CITY AND GREENWICH, CONN.in Cos Cob. As these show
document, this lively but rather conventional group of painters,
who congregated in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich between 1890
and 1920, created some of the most subtle, lyrical images in the
history of American Impressionism.
The environment in which such stalwarts as Childe Hassam,
Theodore Robinson, John H. Twachtman, and J. Alden Weir
flourished is showcased in the exhibitions, along with splendid
examples of the artwork the setting inspired. In their cozy
enclave the artists exchanged ideas, tested styles and themes,
were stimulated by the picturesque village and countryside, and
enjoyed the encouragement of journalists and writers who
clustered around the art colony. "Cos Cob in the 1890s," says art
historian Susan G. Larkin, "was as important to them as
Argenteuil in the 1870s had been to Monet, Renoir, and Manet."
(See Antiques and The Arts Weekly, November 17, 2000.)
Dr Larkin, the world's leading authority on the subject, is the
guest curator of the major exhibition ": Impressionists on the
Connecticut Shore," on view at the National Academy of Design
Museum through May 13. Organized in conjunction with the Bruce
Museum of Arts and Science and the Historical Society of the Town
of Greenwich, the show travels to the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston (June 17 to September 16), and the Denver Art Museum
(October 27 to January 20, 2002).
The some 70 oils, pastels, and other works on paper in the
National Academy exhibition have been divided by curator Larkin
into four favorite themes of a dozen Cos Cob artists: (1)
marinescapes around the harbor; (2) nostalgic views of the
community's aging architecture; (3) depictions of women and
children; and (4) renderings of the landscape surrounding the
town. Each section contains fine, mainly bright Impressionist
canvases by important painters.
"Hunting Wild Turkeys," E. Irving Couse, 1925. Oil on canvas
from the collection of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians
and Western Art, Indianapolis, Ind.
Larkin also curated, with the assistance of museum curatorial
assistant Cynthia Drayton, "Art for the Great Estates: The Bruce
Museum's First Decade," on view at the Bruce Museum through May
27. This exhibition reassembles some 27 paintings and 10
sculptures that were either shown at the new museum, 1912 to
1922, or are similar to them in subject matter and date. During
this period, members of , who had organized as the Greenwich
Society of Artists in 1912, showed their work in well-received
exhibitions at the former Bruce mansion.
The third exhibition, " at Bush-Holley Historic Site," takes
place in the favorite rendezvous of the artists, now owned by the
Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich. Vintage photographs
and examples of the paintings by those who gathered there will be
on view through September 3 in rooms in the old Holley House that
have been reinstalled and reinterpreted to capture the ambience
of the colony's turn-of-the-century heyday.
Art colonies that proliferated in the United States toward the
end of the Nineteenth Century were often an outgrowth of similar
communal experiences our artists had participated in while
training in Europe. Finding that working in groups in the French
countryside spurred creative output, when these painters returned
to this country they continued to seek out one another for
support and stimulating fellowship in paintable locations.
Art colonies with important painters that located in Connecticut
around 1890-1920 included, in addition to Cos Cob, Greenwich, Old
Lyme, Noank, and Mystic. Cos Cob took hold because it offered a
still relatively unspoiled village setting, a convenient location
a one hour train ride from New York City, and the Holley family's
boardinghouse as an affordable gathering place and de facto
headquarters.
The Holley family had purchased the sprawling, 14-room salt box
house, part of which dated to 1732, in the early 1880s and turned
it into a nine-room guesthouse catering to summer visitors. With
fine views from large porches of Cos Cob's small but busy harbor,
the Mianus River, and Long Island Sound, the place was advertised
as offering "boating, bathing, and fishing." The New York - New
Haven train stopped a quarter of a mile away, a mere "three
minutes' walk," proclaimed Holley House advertisements.
Much like Florence Griswold at her place in Old Lyme, the
shabbily genteel Cos Cob structure became a special magnet for
artists and writers because of the charm and cultivation of its
owners, Edward and Josephine Holley and their daughter Constant.
The Holleys filled the old place with flowers, adorned the walls
with reproductions of Old Masters, and furnished it with early
American pieces. The rooms were small, but the meals were
bountiful. It was an ambience conducive to relaxed good
fellowship.
As Larkin puts it, "For artists, Cos Cob offered congenial
company, affordable accommodations, varied recreational
opportunities, and, most important - inspiring subject matter.
The harbor village retained an appealing rusticity long after
other sections of Greenwich had become gentrified."
Among the surroundings that stimulated paintings were a
tide-powered mill, a row of waterfront warehouses, the small
harbor and shipyard festooned with sailing vessels, colonial-era
buildings, views to Long Island Sound, and an expansive vista
from the house's front porch. These and other sights were
recorded by the Cos Cob artists.
After a slow start, the Holley House blossomed as an artists'
haven around 1890, after Twachtman settled with his wife and
family on Round Hill Road in Greenwich, about three miles away.
Twachtman, Larkin emphasizes, "was a magnet attracting other
artists to the area and the nucleus around which the nascent Cos
Cob art colony formed."
While Twachtman welcomed a steady stream of painter friends to
his Greenwich farm, the Holley House offered a more spacious
rendezvous for longer-term stays. "Together, the Holley House and
Twachtman's place were the art colony's focal points, where
artists gathered to paint and talk about painting. The
Impressionists of Cos Cob, encouraging one another to try new
approaches, generated a spirit of innovation that distinguished
this art colony from many others," observes Larkin.
The Cos Cob painters mingled somewhat uneasily with working class
residents, setting up easels around town and greeting passers-by
as they sketched from the expansive veranda of the Holley House.
Regulars at the boardinghouse, while serious about their art,
also organized lively entertainment within the house and leisure
activities in the surrounding area. "Besides swimming, boating,
fishing, and cycling," says Larkin, "they played charades on the
porch, sang songs around the piano, popped corn in the
fireplaces, pulled taffy, and made fudge."
While the somewhat off-beat life of the artists and their friends
set them apart from other newcomers from the city who were
transforming Greenwich from a town into a suburb, the art
colonists soon recognized these prosperous residents were
potential patrons. To cultivate that market, they formed the
Greenwich Society of Artists and staged the exhibitions that are
the subject of the current show at the Bruce Museum.
Among the diverse characters who frequented the Holley House and
joined in the festive activities were writer Willa Cather,
investigative journalist Lincoln Steffens, and a number of then
well-known literary figures. Steffens, the famed muckraker who
made his reputation challenging the status quo, was a key member
of the Holley House gang from 1901 to 1911. In his autobiography
he recounted with relish the debates he and Twachtman initiated
over dinner on a broad range of aesthetic and social issues.
As a result, Larkin notes, "The Holley House, redolent of
tradition, became a bohemian enclave of avant-garde art,
progressive politics, and a degree of sexual freedom." The latter
aspect led Hassam, who was familiar with both places, to call
Miss Griswold's more straitlaced guesthouse in Old Lyme the "Holy
House" in irreverent contrast to the more free-spirited Holley
House.
At the same time that was flourishing for several decades around
the turn of the century, the area around it was undergoing a
significant transition from an agricultural and maritime
community to a well-to-do suburb of New York City. "The sense of
change that permeated life in turn-of-the-century Greenwich
overflowed to the process of art-making there, promoting an
experimental spirit that made this art colony significant in the
history of American art," argues Larkin.
The establishment of the larger art colony in Old Lyme, some 75
miles from Cos Cob, was to some extent an outgrowth of the Cos
Cob experience. Led at first by tonalist Henry Ward Ranger,
beginning in the late 1890s, and soon thereafter by
Impressionists led by Hassam, the Old Lyme painters congregated
in Miss Griswold's boardinghouse, making it one of the most
important art colonies in the nation. The saga of the Old Lyme
artists and the scenery that energized them is the subject of yet
another complementary exhibition, on view through November 25, at
the Old Lyme guesthouse, now the Florence Griswold Museum.
In the book accompanying the National Academy exhibition Larkin
stresses the importance of personalities, especially the moody
but inspirational Twachtman, in shaping the tone of the Cos Cob
group. An enormously talented artist who excelled at capturing
the nuances of nature's changing face in poetic, subtle
landscapes, Twachtman was highly regarded by his fellow painters,
but was never a commercial success. The fact that his delicate
evocations of the Connecticut countryside did not sell well
"contributed to his artistic independence," writes Larkin,
"freeing him from the temptation of producing salable pictures
according to a proven formula." Twachtman's "art, conversation,
and teaching fueled the creative fires of his friends and
students in Cos Cob," says Larkin.
Twachtman (1849-1902) found special inspiration for many of his
finest paintings in the waterfall, brook, pool, and forested
hillsides of the property he acquired on nearby Round Hill Road
in the late 1880s. Among the masterpieces in the National Academy
show are "Snowbound" (1890s), a wintry glimpse of his land from
the road, and an autumnal image of the pool below his house, "The
Hemlock Pool" (circa 1900). There are several images of the
graceful wooden bridge arching over a pond on his property, the
best of which is the wonderfully colorful and evocative "The
White Bridge" (circa 1900) from the collection of the Memorial
Art Gallery of the University of Rochester. Another notable,
albeit rarely seen canvas, is "The Barnyard" (n.d.), recalling a
lively family scene in the backyard of Twachtman's house.
The pleasure Twachtman derived from both the fellowship and
setting of the Holley House, where he stayed off and on over the
years, is suggested by several views he painted of or from the
place, such as the snowy "Country House in Winter, Cos Cob"
(circa 1901), depicting the adjacent Brush House, and of the
tranquil vista from the broad veranda, "Bridge in Winter" (circa
1901). While the porch remains intact, the view today is marred
by a huge elevated bridge carrying I-95 traffic.
The National Academy show also features a recently recognized
Twachtman masterwork, "Sailing in the Mist" (circa 1895), from
the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Depicting a single youngster in a boat drifting on vaporous blue
waters, it is likely an homage to two of the artist's children
who died in infancy in the 1890s.
For a decade Twachtman taught summer art classes at the Holley
House - a much smaller operation than William Merritt Chase's
famed, concurrent summer school at Shinnecock on Long Island.
Both men recruited students from the Art Students League in
Manhattan, where both taught in the winter, leading to a friendly
rivalry between the two painters. Outstanding among Twachtman's
students, whom he encouraged to develop a personal vision, were
D. Putnam Brinley, Charles and Mary Roberts Ebert, Ernest Lawson,
Allen Tucker, and Elmer MacRae, who married Constant Holley in
1900 and became the mainstay of the art colony.
Twachtman's great friend, the gifted Theodore Robinson
(1852-1896), had spent time with Impressionist titan Claude Monet
in Giverny. By example of his own work and by communing with
other painters, he helped translate French Impressionism to an
American idiom. During a brief but productive stay at the Holley
House in 1894, Robinson focused on lyrical depictions of the Cos
Cob waterfront, as exemplified by "Boats at a Landing" (1894) and
"The Anchorage, Cos Cob" (1894), depicting the Riverside Yacht
Club basin. They are among the high points of the exhibition and
reminders that this fine artist, who died too young, deserves
greater recognition.
Weir (1852-1919), who in the early 1880s had acquired a farm in
Branchville, Conn., now the Weir Farm National Historic Site (see
Antiques and The Arts Weekly, September 15, 2000), was a
frequent and supportive presence at the Holley House. An admired
leader among artists, he offered knowledgeable encouragement to
Cos Cob regulars, and benefited from stimulating contacts with
his close friends Hassam, Robinson, and especially Twachtman.
Their influence and the contentment and inspiration his farm
property and family provided is reflected in a number of serene,
atmospheric Weir canvases in the National Academy show,
highlighted by "The Grey Trellis" (1891), "In the Shade of a
Tree" (1894), and "The Laundry, Branchville" (circa 1894). The
charming "After the Ride" (circa 1903) shows Weir's daughter Cora
and a donkey standing next to the barn on the farm. A number of
pastels, watercolors, and pen-and-ink images underscore Weir's
deft touch on paper.
The peripatetic, prolific, and charismatic Hassam (1859-1935),
who visited Cos Cob intermittently for two decades starting in
1896, brought his usual cheerful touch to light-filled
Impressionist views of the area. His skills as a pastellist are
documented by several vigorous, evocative views of the Holley
House that suggest how little the site has changed in nearly a
century.
Hassam's oils in the National Academy exhibition range from the
strongly brushed "The Mill Pond, Cos Cob" (1902), which includes
the railroad drawbridge built over the Mianus River, and "Oyster
Sloop, Cos Cob" (1902), to more delicate interior scene of a
kimono-clad woman, "Bowl of Goldfish" (1912).
Hassam's 1915 etchings, such as "The Steps," "The White Kimono,"
and "The Writing Desk," are fruits of the artist's first
sustained effort at printmaking.
Hopscotching around New England resort communities for many
years, Hassam also painted in the Isles of Shoals, Old Lyme,
Gloucester, and Provincetown, before finally settling in East
Hampton on Long Island in 1919.
Works by two lesser-known members of the Cos Cob group stand out
in the National Academy display. Leonard Ochtman (1854-1934), a
Dutch-born, virtually self-taught painter, settled permanently in
Cos Cob in 1891, with a studio on Valley Road. He exhibited
widely and for two decades offered instruction in landscape
painting. More of a Tonalist than an Impressionist, Ochtman's "On
the Mianus River" (1896), from the Bruce Museum collection,
reflects his dictum to record "the effect of the day, hour or
moment, the mood and not a transcript of the place."
MacRae (1875-1953) had studied at the Art Students League before
he arrived in the 1890s to take outdoor landscape classes with
Twachtman. He soon married Constant Holley and lived the rest of
his life in the Holley House. Successful exhibitions of his work
on the premises attracted patrons from the broader Greenwich
community.
A skilled pastellist as well as oil painter, MacRae has several
interesting canvases in the National Academy show, including a
powerful rendition of the harbor, "Schooner in the Ice" (1900), a
warm, affectionate depiction of "The Upper Porch at Holley House"
(1900), and a colorful, close-up floral work, "Hollyhocks"
(1914), from the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden.
MacRae, a charter member of the Greenwich Society of Artists, was
also a founder of the Association of American Painters and
Sculptors. In the latter group he played a key role in organizing
the Armory Show of 1913, which introduced European modernism to
America. Ten of his own works were exhibited in that
groundbreaking show.
declined after 1919. Many of its original leaders, such as
Robinson and Twachtman, were long dead; Hassam and Weir had
settled elsewhere; Charles and Mary Ebert had relocated to Old
Lyme; Ochtman was past his prime; and MacRae had begun devoting
himself to woodcarving.
Moreover, the sense of the place that made the Cos Cob-Greenwich
area so attractive to Impressionists had disappeared with the
loss of farms and decline of the once-vibrant waterfront. In
addition, as Larkin points out, "As early modernists turned
toward abstraction, they no longer needed to leave their studios
to seek compelling subject matter."
The MacRaes continued to operate their boardinghouse for several
more years, but the vital, inquisitive crowd of creative
personalities had been replaced by more sedate guests. "By 1920,"
says Larkin, "the heady years of artistic innovation by artists
and writers at the Holley House were largely the stuff of
memory."
Bruce Museum Exhibition
"Art for the Great Estates: The Bruce Museum's First Decade"
explores the manner in which the newly formed Greenwich Society
of Artists (GSA) organized the first exhibition of their work at
the Bruce Museum. Textile merchant Robert Bruce had left his home
to the Town of Greenwich in 1909, but provided neither a
collection nor funds to acquire one.
The GSA exhibition of 1912, which inaugurated the new museum, was
followed by annual shows through 1914. They resumed in 1919 after
a break during World War I. These well-publicized displays, which
doubled as social events, offered means for the previously aloof
artists to reach out to potential buyers among wealthy newcomers
who were building large homes in the area.
A few non-resident artists, notably old friends like Hassam and
Weir, participated with resident artists in the successful,
largely conservative exhibitions. "[T]he organizers," curators
Larkin and Drayton note in a brochure accompanying the current
Bruce Museum show, "catered to a taste for elegance and
refinement." Visitors enjoyed, in that context, a diverse
selection of Impressionist and realist paintings and Beaux-Arts
sculpture.
The fledgling Bruce Museum, undoubtedly influenced by Ochtman's
dual role as the museum's art advisor and the GSA's president,
purchased eight paintings from the 1919 exhibition. These first
works to enter the collection included Ochtman's subtly
atmospheric "October Morning" (1919).
The canvases on view in the current display reflect the artists'
interest in rural landscapes, venerable structures, waterfront
scenes, still lifes, and images of chaste women. Standout
landscapes include such sun-splashed views as Charles H. Davis'
"The Old Pasture" (n.d.), which appears to be set in the
Connecticut countryside, and Henry Bill Selden's "Landscape with
Trees and Clouds" (1912). Davis (1856-1933), a European-trained
New Englander who lived in Mystic from 1890 until his death, is
said to have painted 900 landscapes of the area during his long
career. He also taught art classes, founded the Mystic Art
Association, and encouraged numerous younger artists.
Hassam, America's most famous Impressionist, is represented by
one of his many lyrical depictions of the rocky terrain of the
Isles of Shoals and by an evocative canvas of a wonderful old
home near his own cottage on Long Island, "Little Old Cottage,
Egypt Lane, East Hampton" (1917). It is a beauty.
In a contrasting image, Pennsylvania Impressionist Robert Spencer
(1879-1931), noted for his scenes of tenements and factory life,
showed workers at quitting time in "Five O'Clock June" (1913).
Edward H. Potthast (1857-1917), the indefatigable chronicler of
the New England coast, is represented in the Bruce Museum
exhibition by the vigorously brushed "Harbor Scene" (n.d.). The
standout still life "Peonies" (n.d.) is by Danish-born Emil
Carlsen (1853-1932), a specialist in that genre. He also painted
landscapes around his summer home in Falls Village in the
northwest corner of Connecticut.
Among the images of genteel ladies is "Morning" (1919) by the
under-appreciated Helen M. Turner (1858-1958), who lived for
years in the art colony around Cragsmoor in New York's Hudson
Valley.
Eanger Irving Couse (1866-1936), an academically trained painter
who was known for his sympathetic portrayals of Native Americans
around his adopted home in Taos, New Mexico, weighs in with
"Hunting Wild Turkeys" (1925) in the Bruce Museum show.
In part because sculptor Edward Clark Potter served as first
President of the GSA, early Bruce Museum exhibitions were strong
in three-dimensional work by the likes of Herbert Adams
(1858-1945), Abastenia St L. Eberle, Daniel Chester French,
Harriet Frishmuth (1880-1979), Evelyn Beatrice Longman, Hermon
Atkins MacNeill, Edward McCartan, and Bessie Potter Vonnoh.
The most familiar piece, then and now, was French's "Seated
Lincoln" (1916), a bronze working model for the celebrated
Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Sculptures that would have looked
good in the formal gardens that had begun to proliferate around
Greenwich included Adams' contemplative "Nymph of Fynmere" (1915)
and Frishmuth's exuberant "Joy of the Waters" (1920).
After organizing all of the Bruce Museum art shows through 1926,
in 1928 the GSA moved its base to a gallery in the new Greenwich
Public Library. As Larkin and Drayton observe, and their
exhibition illustrates, in the years around World War I, the GSA
"enabled the Bruce Museum to showcase some of the finest art then
being made in America."
Bush-Holley Historic Site Exhibition
The third of the current exhibition group is appropriately set in
the venerable and historic structure now known as the Bush-Holley
House. The gathering place of the Cos Cob artists is today
handsomely maintained and carefully interpreted by the Historical
Society of the Town of Greenwich, which purchased the place in
1957. The property includes the Holley Barn, where artists
painted; a research archive housing papers, photographs, and
memorabilia of the town's history; and an old general store that
is now a visitor center and exhibition area.
Recently reworked to reflect even more strongly the artists'
mecca in its glory days, the house features numerous fireplaces,
an inviting double veranda, faux-grained paneling, Eighteenth
Century Connecticut antique furnishings, and high ceilings.
Original artwork and reproductions are scattered strategically
around the house. MacRae's second-floor studio, looking out on
the waterfront, has been recreated from family photographs. This
National Historic Landmark offers nostalgic glimpses into the
life and times of .
The exhibition " at Bush-Holley Historic Site" continues in the
visitor center, where photographs, artwork, manuscripts, and
memorabilia are on display.
As these three exhibitions document, that art colony played a
belatedly appreciated role in the history of American art. Larkin
deserves much credit for her years of research, writing, and
curating that have secured for Cos Cob its rightful place in the
annals of our art history. left an enduring legacy of beautiful
work, and thanks to the Historical Society of the Town of
Greenwich, the Bush-Holley House, where so much creativity was
stimulated, retains a lasting ambience.
"Five O'Clock, June," Robert Spencer, 1913. Oil on canvas
courtesy of Richard and Mary Radcliffe.
The book accompanying "" at the National Academy was written by
Larkin. It offers the first comprehensive analysis of the
artistic enclave. Placing the Cos Cob group in the context of art
colonies in Europe and America, Larkin examines the appeal of the
Greenwich area and the Holley House to artists, delves into the
personalities and output of leading figures, and explains reasons
for the art colony's decline.
Published by Yale University Press, this well-written and richly
illustrated volume (78 color and 67 black-and-white images) is a
welcome addition to American art scholarship. It sells for $45
(hardcover) and $35 (softcover, available only at the National
Academy Museum shop).
The Bruce Museum has scheduled a number of special activities
relating to its exhibition and those at the other two sites.
Larkin will lead a tour to the National Academy show on Thursday,
April 26. There will be a joint family day at the museum and
Bush-Holley Historic Site on Sunday, May 6.
The Bruce Museum and Bush-Holley Historic Site have organized a
seminar, "Turn of the Century Tastes," which will take place at
the Bruce Museum on Sunday, April 22, from 2 to 5 pm. Introduced
and moderated by curator Larkin, it will include presentations
and discussion among three scholars on aspects of suburban life
at the outset of the Twentieth Century. Kevin Murphy, associate
professor, CUNY Graduate Program in Art History, will address
"The Country Estate at the Turn of the Century"; Kathleen
Johnson, curator at Historic Hudson Valley, will talk about "Turn
of the Century Interiors"; and Eleanor Weller, garden historian,
will examine "The Golden Age of American Gardens." For
reservations, 203-869-0376.
The National Academy of Design Museum is at 1083 Fifth Avenue
in New York. For information, 212-369-4880. The Bruce Museum of
Arts and Science is at 1 Museum Drive in Greenwich. For
information, 203-869-0376. Bush-Holley Historic Site is at 39
Strickland Road in Cos Cob. For information, 203-869-6899.
