Willard Leroy Metcalf (July 1, 1858March 9, 1925) was an American painter born in
Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of ...
. He studied at the
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (Museum School, SMFA at Tufts, or SMFA; formerly the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) is the art school of Tufts University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusett ...
, and later attended
Académie Julian,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
. After early figure-painting and illustration, he became prominent as a
landscape painter
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composi ...
. He was one of the
Ten American Painters
The Ten American Painters (also known as The Ten) was an artists' group formed in 1898 to exhibit their work as a unified group. John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, and Childe Hassam were the driving forces behind the organization. Dissatisfie ...
who in 1897 seceded from the
Society of American Artists
The Society of American Artists was an American artists group. It was formed in 1877 by artists who felt the National Academy of Design did not adequately meet their needs, and was too conservative.
The group began meeting in 1874 at the home of ...
. For some years he was an instructor in the Women's Art School,
Cooper Union,
New York, and in the
Art Students League
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may stu ...
, New York. In 1893 he became a member of the
American Watercolor Society
The American Watercolor Society, founded in 1866, is a nonprofit membership organization devoted to the advancement of watercolor painting in the United States.
Qualifications
AWS judges the work of a painter before granting admission to the soc ...
, New York. Generally associated with
American Impressionism
American Impressionism was a style of painting related to European Impressionism and practiced by American artists in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. The style is characterized by loose ...
, he is also remembered for his New England landscapes and involvement with the
Old Lyme Art Colony at
Old Lyme, Connecticut
Old Lyme is a coastal town in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The main street of the town, Lyme Street, is a historic district with several homes once owned by sea captains. Lyme Academy of Fine Arts is located in Old Lyme and the ...
and his influential years at the
Cornish Art Colony
The Cornish Art Colony (or Cornish Artists’ Colony, or Cornish Colony) was a popular art colony centered in Cornish, New Hampshire from about 1895 through the years of World War I. Attracted by the natural beauty of the area, about 100 artists ...
.
Early years
Born into a working-class family, Metcalf began painting in 1874. In 1876 he opened a studio in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, 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.
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 with
Gustave Boulanger
Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger (25 April 1824 – 22 September 1888) was a French figurative painter and academic artist and teacher known for his Classical and Orientalist subjects.
Education and career The Néo-Grecs and the Prix de Rom ...
and
Jules-Joseph Lefebvre, subsequently going to
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and
Pont-Aven
Pont-Aven (, Breton: 'River Bridge') is a commune in the Finistère department in the Brittany region in Northwestern France. In 2019, it had a population of 2,821.
Demographics
Inhabitants of Pont-Aven are called ''Pontavenistes'' in French ...
,
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...
. In the winter of 1884 he apparently met
John Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman (August 4, 1853 – August 8, 1902) was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impr ...
in Paris, and painted at
Grez-sur-Loing
Grez-sur-Loing (, literally ''Grez on Loing''; formerly Grès-en-Gâtinais, literally ''Grès in Gâtinais'') is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France.
Sights
* The Church of Notre-Dame et Saint-Laurent ''(Church ...
alongside other American artists, including
Theodore Robinson
Theodore Robinson (June 3, 1852April 2, 1896) was an American painter best known for his Impressionist landscapes. He was one of the first American artists to take up Impressionism in the late 1880s, visiting Giverny and developing a close frien ...
. His landscapes at this time were traditional renditions of peasant scenes, in the manner of
Jean Millet.
[Hiesinger, page 241.] By 1886 Metcalf was painting in
, evidently the first American painter to visit there.
Soon thereafter he traveled to
Algeria
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and
Tunisia
)
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, returning to Giverny in the summers of 1887 and 1888, in the company of other American painters.
Return to America
![Willard Leroy Metcalf On the Suffolk Coast](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Willard_Leroy_Metcalf_On_the_Suffolk_Coast.jpg)
Upon his return to the United States Metcalf had a solo exhibition at the
St. Botolph Club in Boston. After living briefly in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, in 1890 he opened a studio in New York, working for several years as a portrait painter, illustrator, and teacher. In 1895 he painted at
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
, 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 of
The Ten
''The Ten'' is a 2007 anthology comedy film directed by David Wain and cowritten by Wain and Ken Marino. It was released through ThinkFilm. The film was released on August 3, 2007. The DVD was released on January 15, 2008. It is an international ...
were disappointing. At the time Metcalf led a lavish social life that included heavy drinking.
In 1899 Metcalf joined his friends
Robert Reid and
Edward Simmons in painting murals for a New York courthouse; in this genre he was no more successful than he had been as an illustrator and portraitist. Metcalf's model for the murals was Marguerite Beaufort Hailé, a stage performer twenty years his junior, whom the artist would marry in 1903.
Maturity
![Willard Leroy Metcalf - The Ten Cent Breakfast - Google Art Project](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Willard_Leroy_Metcalf_-_The_Ten_Cent_Breakfast_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
In preparation for a mural commissioned by a tobacco company, Metcalf traveled to
Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. ,
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
in 1902, to make painted studies. That year he also produced a series of notable landscapes, including ''The Boat Landing'' and ''Battery Park-Spring''.
These works were characterized by a new freshness of execution and lightness of palette. In 1904 he resided and painted steadily in
Clark's Cove,
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
. By 1905, at the encouragement of his friend
Childe Hassam
Frederick Childe Hassam (; October 17, 1859 – August 27, 1935) was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressioni ...
, 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.
In 1907 ''
May Night'' won the
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University.
Overview
The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...
'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. It remains one of Metcalf's best known works and is now in the collection of the
National Gallery of Art. In the same year his marriage to Marguerite dissolved when she eloped from Old Lyme with one of Metcalf's male students.
Cornish Art Colony
Metcalf frequently visited the
Cornish Art Colony
The Cornish Art Colony (or Cornish Artists’ Colony, or Cornish Colony) was a popular art colony centered in Cornish, New Hampshire from about 1895 through the years of World War I. Attracted by the natural beauty of the area, about 100 artists ...
, centered in the villages of
Plainfield and
Cornish, New Hampshire between 1909 and 1921, often during the quiet winter seasons when many of the colony's residents had returned to the city. 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. In 1909, Louis Shipman, a playwright and husband of landscape architect
Ellen Biddle Shipman
Ellen Biddle Shipman (November 5, 1869 – March 27, 1950) was an American landscape architect known for her formal gardens and lush planting style. Along with Beatrix Farrand and Marian Cruger Coffin, she dictated the style of the time and stron ...
, invited Metcalf to join him for a winter in
Plainfield, at his estate there, Brook Place.
![My Wife and Daughter, Willard Metcalf, 1917](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/My_Wife_and_Daughter%2C_Willard_Metcalf%2C_1917.jpg)
Metcalf would return faithfully for many winters, and at least one summer after that. He was good friends with colonist
Charles Platt, on whose Cornish estate he honeymooned, with his second wife,
Henriette Alice McCrea-Metcalf in 1911.
Varying year to year, he stayed with the Shipmans, or a converted grist mill close to the village of Plainfield. His frequent Cornish muse was
Blow-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.
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, including ''Blow-Me-Down'' (1911), ''The Village-September Morning'' (1911) and ''The White Veil'' (1909) and the lovely, masterful "Cornish Hills" (1911).
Later works, death, and legacy
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 and
Plainfield, New Hampshire
Plainfield is a town in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States. At the time of the 2020 census, the town had a population of 2,459. The town is home to the Helen Woodruff Smith Bird Sanctuary and Annie Duncan State Forest.
The village of P ...
, Metcalf lived and painted in Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine, where in 1920 he painted ''Benediction'' (now lost), a nocturne. In 1923 the painting sold for $13,000, then a record price for the work of a living American artist.
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.
The
Corcoran Gallery
The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University.
Overview
The Corcoran School of the Arts & Desi ...
held a large exhibition of Metcalf's work in 1925, during which the artist died of a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...
in New York City, on March 6.
He was 66.
The
Florence 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. A number of American museums have collected artworks by Metcalf, including the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, the
National Gallery of Art, the
Art Institute of Chicago, the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
, the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, the
De Young Museum
The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the California Pala ...
, the
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...
, the
Freer Gallery of Art, the
Smithsonian American Art Museum, the
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...
, the
Worcester Art Museum
The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. WAM opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and ranks among th ...
, the
Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at
Scripps College, the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
, the
Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Amon may refer to:
Mythology
* Amun, an Ancient Egyptian deity, also known as Amon and Amon-Ra
* Aamon, a Goetic demon
People Momonym
* Amon of Judah ( 664– 640 BC), king of Judah
Given name
* Amon G. Carter (1879–1955), American pu ...
, the
Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...
, the
Terra Foundation for American Art
The Terra Foundation for American Art is a privately operated nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of American art exhibitions, projects, academic research, and publications worldwide. Its goal is to promote a greater understanding and a ...
,
Colby College Museum of Art
The Colby College Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1959 and now comprising five wings, nearly 8,000 works and more than 38,000 square feet of exhibition space, the Colby Colleg ...
,
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...
,
Mead Art Museum
Mead Art Museum houses the fine art collection of Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Opened in 1949, the building is named after architect William Rutherford Mead (class of 1867), of the prestigious architectural firm McKim, Mead & White ...
at
Amherst College,
Historic Deerfield
Historic Deerfield is a museum dedicated to the heritage and preservation of Deerfield, Massachusetts, and history of the Connecticut River Valley. Its historic houses, museums, and programs provide visitors with an understanding of New Engla ...
,
Smith College Museum of Art
The Smith College Museum of Art (abbreviated SCMA), is an art museum in Northampton, Massachusetts connected with Smith College. The museum is known for its compilation of American and European art of the 19th and 20th centuries, including works by ...
, and the
Seattle Art Museum
The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...
. Works also appear in international collections, such as Madrid's
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (in Spanish, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (), named after its founder), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. I ...
.
His ashes were scattered in Cornish, New Hampshire, by his longtime friend Charles Platt.
Notable works
''Summer Morning, Giverny'' (c. 1888), sold at Christie's for $422,500 in 2010
''Midsummer Twilight'' (c. 1890, France), at the National Gallery of Art
''May Night'' (1906), at the National Gallery of Art, painted in Old Lyme
''The White Veil'' (1909), Rhode Island School of Design Museum
* 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 the
Ten American Painters
The Ten American Painters (also known as The Ten) was an artists' group formed in 1898 to exhibit their work as a unified group. John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, and Childe Hassam were the driving forces behind the organization. Dissatisfie ...
.
''The Village- September Morning'' (1911), the Hevrdejs Collection, his only depiction of Plainfield Village
''Benediction'' (1923), now lost, gained greatest sum for a work by a living American artist
See also
*
List of Orientalist artists
This is an incomplete list of artists who have produced works on Orientalist subjects, drawn from the Islamic world or other parts of Asia. Many artists listed on this page worked in many genres, and Orientalist subjects may not have formed a m ...
*
Orientalism
Notes
References
*Chambers, Bruce W., et al., ''May Night, Willard Metcalf in Old Lyme'', Florence Griswold Museum, 2005. .
*Hiesinger, Ulrich W., ''Impressionism in America: The Ten American Painters'', Prestel-Verlag, 1991. .
External links
The Willard Leroy Metcalf Catalogue Raisonné*
ttp://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/searchterm/Metcalf%2C%20Willard%20Leroy/field/subjec/mode/exact/conn/and/order/nosort Exhibition catalogsof the artist, available from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Metcalf, Willard
19th-century American painters
American male painters
20th-century American painters
American Impressionist painters
Académie Julian alumni
Art Students League of New York faculty
1858 births
1925 deaths
Artists from Lowell, Massachusetts
Painters from Massachusetts
School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts alumni
19th-century American male artists
20th-century American male artists