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Willard Metcalf

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Willard Metcalf
Metcalf, c. 1920
Born(1858-07-01)July 1, 1858
Lowell, Massachusetts
DiedMarch 9, 1925(1925-03-09)(aged 66)
New York City
NationalityAmerican
EducationSchool of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,Académie Julian,Paris
Known forPainting
MovementImpressionismLandscape art
AwardsAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters Inductee

Willard Leroy Metcalf(July 1, 1858 – March 9, 1925) was an American painter born inLowell, Massachusetts.He studied at theSchool of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,and later attendedAcadémie Julian,Paris.After early figure-painting and illustration, he became prominent as alandscape painter.He was one of theTen American Painterswho in 1897 seceded from theSociety of American Artists.For some years he was an instructor in the Women's Art School,Cooper Union,New York,and in theArt Students League,New York.[1]In 1893 he became a member of theAmerican Watercolor Society,New York. Generally associated withAmerican Impressionism,he is also remembered for his New England landscapes and involvement with theOld Lyme Art ColonyatOld Lyme, Connecticutand his influential years at theCornish Art Colony.

Early years

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Born into a working-class family, Metcalf began painting in 1874. In 1876 he opened a studio inBoston,and received a scholarship at the Boston Museum school, where he studied until 1878. In 1882 he held an exhibition at the J. Eastman Chase Gallery in Boston, the sales from which financed a study trip abroad.[2]

Metcalf left for Europe in September 1883, and did not return to the United States until late 1888. During that time he traveled and painted, studying first in Paris withGustave BoulangerandJules-Joseph Lefebvre,subsequently going toEnglandandPont-Aven,Brittany.In the winter of 1884 he apparently metJohn Twachtmanin Paris, and painted atGrez-sur-Loingalongside other American artists, includingTheodore Robinson.His landscapes at this time were traditional renditions of peasant scenes, in the manner ofJean Millet.[3]By 1886 Metcalf was painting inGiverny,evidently the first American painter to visit there.[3]Soon thereafter he traveled toAlgeriaandTunisia,returning to Giverny in the summers of 1887 and 1888, in the company of other American painters.

Cornish Hills,1911, oil on canvas

Return to America

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On the Suffolk Coast,1885

Upon his return to the United States Metcalf had a solo exhibition at theSt. Botolph Clubin Boston. After living briefly inPhiladelphia,in 1890 he opened a studio in New York, working for several years as a portrait painter, illustrator, and teacher. In 1895 he painted atGloucester,Massachusetts, and ceased to work as an illustrator. In the late 1890s he appears to have painted little, and his contributions to the first few exhibitions ofThe Tenwere disappointing. At the time Metcalf led a lavish social life that included heavy drinking.[4]

In 1899 Metcalf joined his friendsRobert ReidandEdward Simmonsin painting murals for a New York courthouse; in this genre he was no more successful than he had been as an illustrator and portraitist.[5]Metcalf's model for the murals was Marguerite Beaufort Hailé, a stage performer twenty years his junior, whom the artist would marry in 1903.[3]

Maturity

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The Ten Cent Breakfast
May Night,1906, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art

In preparation for a mural commissioned by a tobacco company, Metcalf traveled toHavana,Cubain 1902, to make painted studies. That year he also produced a series of notable landscapes, includingThe Boat LandingandBattery Park-Spring.[3]These works were characterized by a new freshness of execution and lightness of palette.[6]In 1904 he resided and painted steadily inClark's Cove,Maine.By 1905, at the encouragement of his friendChilde Hassam,he began summering in Old Lyme, working as both painter and teacher, and held successful exhibitions in New York and again at the St. Botolph Club. His expertly handled, subtle views of the New England landscape met with steady critical and financial success.[3]

In 1907May Nightwon theCorcoran Gallery of Art's gold medal, was honored with the top purchase prize of $3,000, and became the first contemporary American painting to be bought by that institution.[7]It remains one of Metcalf's best known works and is now in the collection of theNational Gallery of Art.[8]In the same year his marriage to Marguerite dissolved when she eloped from Old Lyme with one of Metcalf's male students.[9]

Cornish Art Colony

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Metcalf frequently visited theCornish Art Colony,centered in the villages ofPlainfieldandCornish, New Hampshirebetween 1909 and 1921, often during the quiet winter seasons when many of the colony's residents had returned to the city.[10]The colony stretched over gentle, open hills along the Connecticut River with views of Mount Ascutney in Vermont, a landscape which garnered it comparisons to Tuscany and a crop of Italianate summer homes.[11]In 1909, Louis Shipman, a playwright and husband of landscape architectEllen Biddle Shipman,invited Metcalf to join him for a winter inPlainfield,at his estate there, Brook Place.[12]

My Wife and Daughter, Willard Metcalf, 1917

Metcalf would return faithfully for many winters, and at least one summer after that. He was good friends with colonistCharles Platt,on whose Cornish estate he honeymooned, with his second wife,Henriette Alice McCrea-Metcalfin 1911.[12]Varying year to year, he stayed with the Shipmans, or a converted grist mill close to the village of Plainfield. His frequent Cornish muse wasBlow-me-down Brook,a small creek which runs through the area, and passed along his residence. Other works depict the hills, the Shipman residence or other country buildings.[12]His production in Cornish exemplified and elevated his reputation for painting modest and intimate scenery of the changing seasons, elements which are represented in his work from the time. The pieces he produced in the Cornish area brought an unusual time of social, critical and commercial success in his life, so often filled with personal tumult. His paintings were compared with the poetry of Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, and other writers, earning him a reputation, in the words of one critic, as the "poet laureate of the New England hills."

While at the colony he painted around 35 landscapes, includingBlow-Me-Down(1911),The Village-September Morning(1911) andThe White Veil(1909) and the lovely, masterful "Cornish Hills" (1911).[12]

The heading of Willard Metcalf's obituary, published in theNew York Timesafter his 1925 death, recognizes his rag to riches story as typifying "the romance of American Life."

Later works, death, and legacy

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Metcalf continued to hold one-man shows in New York and Boston. During the 1910s he traveled incessantly in search of painting sites. In 1913 he spent nine months painting in Paris, Norway, England, and Italy; in the U.S., in addition to Cornish andPlainfield, New Hampshire,Metcalf lived and painted in Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine, where in 1920 he paintedBenediction(now lost), a nocturne. In 1923 the painting sold for $13,000, then a record price for the work of a living American artist.[3]

His familial strife continued when, after having two children, he and Henrietta divorced in 1920, which spurred a period of drinking and decreased productivity. However, he rebounded and painted for a number of years in Vermont, possibly returning briefly to Cornish.

TheCorcoran Galleryheld a large exhibition of Metcalf's work in 1925, during which the artist died of aheart attackin New York City, on March 6.[3]He was 66.

TheFlorence Griswold House,where Metcalf visited and stayed in Old Lyme between 1905 and 1907, now houses the largest public collection of Metcalf's paintings and personal artifacts.[13]A number of American museums have collected artworks by Metcalf, including theMetropolitan Museum of Art,[14]theNational Gallery of Art,[15]theArt Institute of Chicago,[16]theBoston Museum of Fine Arts,[17]thePhiladelphia Museum of Art,[18]theDe Young Museum,[19]theDetroit Institute of Arts,[20]theFreer Gallery of Art,[21]theSmithsonian American Art Museum,[22]theBaltimore Museum of Art,[23]theWorcester Art Museum,[24]theRuth Chandler Williamson GalleryatScripps College,[25]theLibrary of Congress,[26]theAmon Carter Museum of American Art,[27]theDallas Museum of Art,[28]theTerra Foundation for American Art,[29]Colby College Museum of Art,[30]Yale University Art Gallery,[31]Mead Art MuseumatAmherst College,[32]Historic Deerfield,[33]Smith College Museum of Art,[34]and theSeattle Art Museum.[35]Works also appear in international collections, such as Madrid'sThyssen-Bornemisza Museum.[36]

His ashes were scattered in Cornish, New Hampshire, by his longtime friend Charles Platt.

Indian Summer, Vermont,oil on canvas, 1922.Dallas Museum of Art

Notable works

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Summer Morning, Giverny(c. 1888), sold at Christie's for $422,500 in 2010[37]

Midsummer Twilight(c. 1890, France), at the National Gallery of Art[38]

May Night(1906), at the National Gallery of Art, painted in Old Lyme[39]

The White Veil(1909), Rhode Island School of Design Museum[40]

  • He painted this in Plainfield by the Shipman house, and later created a second copy,The White Veil(no. 2), now at the Detroit Institute of Arts, upon return to New York. It was among his best winter landscapes and received critical praise at an exhibition with theTen American Painters.[41]

The Village- September Morning(1911), the Hevrdejs Collection, his only depiction of Plainfield Village[41]

Benediction(1923), now lost, gained greatest sum for a work by a living American artist[41]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911). "Metcalf, Willard Leroy".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 257.
  2. ^Hiesinger, pages 240-1.
  3. ^abcdefgHiesinger, page 241.
  4. ^Chambers, page 28; Hiesinger, page 241.
  5. ^Chambers, page 28.
  6. ^Chambers, page 32.
  7. ^Chambers, page 14.
  8. ^Metcalf, Willard Leroy (1906)."May Night".National Gallery of Art.
  9. ^Chambers, page 63.
  10. ^Gilbert, Alma."Cornish Colony".askART.askART Services and Subscriptions.Retrieved2 March2016.
  11. ^Italie, Hillel (7 February 2010)."J.D Salinger's New Hampshire Hometown has a Rich Artistic History".USA Today.Retrieved6 February2016.
  12. ^abcdMacAdam, Barabara (1999).Winter's Promise.Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College. p. 21.ISBN0-944722-22-9.
  13. ^[1]Florence Griswold Museum
  14. ^"Search the Collection".The Metropolitan Museum of Art.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  15. ^"Willard Leroy Metcalf".National Gallery of Art.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  16. ^"Willard Leroy Metcalf".The Art Institute of Chicago.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  17. ^"Artist/Maker: Willard Leroy Metcalf".Museum of Fine Arts Boston.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  18. ^"Collections: Search Collections".Philadelphia Museum of Art.RetrievedApril 19,2021.
  19. ^"Search the Collections: Willard Leroy Metcalf".Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  20. ^"Search Collection".Detroit Institute of Arts.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  21. ^"Search results".Collections Search Center, Smithsonian Institution.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  22. ^"Willard L. Metcalf".Smithsonian American Art Museum.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  23. ^"Collection".Baltimore Museum of Art.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  24. ^"Works – Willard LeRoy Metcalf".Worcester Art Museum.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  25. ^"Object results".Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  26. ^"Available Online, Metcalf, Willard Leroy, Prints and Photographs Division".Library of Congress.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  27. ^"Willard LeRoy Metcalf".Amon Carter Museum of American Art.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  28. ^"DMA Collection Online: Willard LeRoy Metcalf".Dallas Museum of Art.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  29. ^"Collections: Willard Metcalf".Terra Foundation for American Art.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  30. ^"Willard Leroy Metcalf · Search Results".Colby College Museum of Art.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  31. ^"Search the Collection: Willard Leroy Metcalf".Yale University Art Gallery.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  32. ^"Collections Database: Search Results".Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  33. ^"Collections Database: Search Results".Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  34. ^"Collections Database: Search Results".Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  35. ^"The Cornish Hills".Seattle Art Museum.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  36. ^"The Picnic - Metcalf, Willard L."Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.RetrievedApril 17,2021.
  37. ^"Willard Leroy Metcalf -Summer Morning, Giverny".christies.Retrieved2016-03-11.
  38. ^"Midsummer Twilight".National Gallery of Art.17 May 1890.RetrievedApril 17,2021.
  39. ^"May Night".National Gallery of Art.RetrievedApril 17,2021.
  40. ^"The White Veil".RISD Museum.RetrievedApril 18,2021.
  41. ^abcMacAdam, Barbara (1999).Winter's Promise.Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College. p. 56.ISBN0-944722-22-9.

References

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  • Chambers, Bruce W., et al.,May Night, Willard Metcalf in Old Lyme,Florence Griswold Museum, 2005.ISBN1-880897-22-9.
  • Hiesinger, Ulrich W.,Impressionism in America: The Ten American Painters,Prestel-Verlag, 1991.ISBN3-7913-1142-5.
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