An American art colony

At the turn of the twentieth century American painters, like their French counterparts, left their urban studios in the summer in favor of bucolic settings with captivating scenery for them to paint en plein air: Once American artists found a suitable locale, word spread and others soon followed. Thus was born the American art colony which was usually comprised of a loosely knit group of artists who sought nothing more than a change of scene and the camaraderie of like-minded colleagues. There were many such art colonies across the United States from California to Maine, and while some of them became year-round settlements others were strictly summer escapes.

A traveling exhibition devoted to the group of artists who settled in and around New Hope, in Bucks County Pennsylvania, starting in 1898 is currently on view at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, which was also the site of an art colony The exhibition of forty-seven works is entitled Earth, River and Light: Masterworks of Pennsylvania Impressionism, and will be on view in Old Lyme until September 28. The exhibition was organized by Brian H. Peterson, the senior curator at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

William L. Lathrop was the first artist to put down roots in Bucks County following his stay at an inn there in 1898. Had his wife Annie not been social, other artists might never have been drawn to this lovely spot. However, her congenial and maternal nature made the Lathrops' house a magnet for other artists and their families. In 1899 the Lathrops bought a stone house at Phillips Mill from which William often took his small boat down the canal to the New Hope train station to meet his students arriving from Philadelphia. Less sociable was the artist Edward Redfield, who purchased a tract of land north of New Hope from his aunt in 1898.

Lathrop and Redfield were establishing their names in American art circles, so it is not surprising that other artists who admired them were drawn into their orbit in New Hope. Redfield was so dedicated to painting out-of-doors that he could frequently be found standing at his easel in sub-zero weather, and under these harsh circumstances he was able to dash off a painting in a single day Daniel Garber, like Redfleld and Lathrop, had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he spent forty-one years teaching art. He and his wife settled in Lumberville, just north of New Hope, in 1907. Between 1915 and 1917 the number of artists working in the region hit a peak, and in 1928 a group formalized their association and a year later purchased the Phillips Mill building, where they held (and still hold) exhibitions of works by local artists. This was one of the few endeavors undertaken as a group by the artists working in the region.

As Sylvia Yount notes in her essay in the exhibition catalogue, the label Pennsylvania impressionists is "something of a misnomer, given the group's absence of any unifying style as well as its general lack of cohesion." However, the three artists most frequently associated with this label--Redfield, Garber, and Walter Elmer Schofield--all trained at the Pennsylvania Academy. There, the rigorous curriculum of art instruction and the legacy of Thomas Eakins and his followers are identifiable in the highly individual interpretations of the impressionist style practiced by these three artists.

The exhibition at the Griswold Museum includes works by artists such as Childe Hassam, John Henry Twachtman, and Willard L. Metcalf who painted in and near Old Lyme. These are evocative confinnations that artists responded to their environment in different ways and that the impressionist style had many facets.

The catalogue of the exhibition is edited by Peterson and contains essays by him, Yount, and William H. Gerdts, with contributions by others. It is copublished by the Michener Art Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Press, and may be obtained from the Griswold Museum at 860-434-5542 or the Michener Art Museum at 215- 340-9800.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Bonfire, by William L Lathrop (1859-1938), c. 1921. Oil on canvas, 30 by 25 inches. Private collection.

Cheerful Barge 269, by M. Elizabeth Price (1877-1965), c. 1930. Oil on canvas, 40 by 48 inches. Collection of Louis E. and Carol A Della Penna.

Students of Painting, by Daniel Garber (1880-1958), 1923. Signed "Daniel Garber" at lower left. Oil on composition board, 18 by 21 7/8 inches. Pennsylvania Academy of the Pine Arts, Philadelphia, gift of John Franklin Garber and Mrs. Tanis Page.

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