The summer of Hassam

Magazine Antiques, July, 2004 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

Were he alive to enjoy it, the brilliant painter and astute marketer Childe Hassam would be basking in the glory of a triumvirate of special exhibitions of his art organized at various institutions in Connecticut to complement the enormous retrospective currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. (See pp. 86-95 of this issue.) These four shows provide what is certainly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to appreciate the astonishing depth and variety of Hassam's considerable oeuvre, much of which is privately owned and has not been on public view in years.

An outgrowth of the art world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the emergence of many informally organized art colonies, which sprang up around the country in remote locations, such as the islands off Maine and in towns that were a short train ride from Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia. Hassam visited several such colonies during his long and prolific career, staying at some only fleetingly while remaining at others for longer periods.

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One of the first of these art colonies was founded at Cos Cob, a part of Greenwich, Connecticut, an easy train ride from New York City. Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, and Julian Alden Weir were among the talented artists who lived or summered in or near Cos Cob. In 1894 Hassam made his first trip there to visit Twachtman, and he returned frequently until about 1918. As was the case at other art colonies, Cos Cob's artistic life centered around a boardinghouse, in this case Holley House (now called the Bush-Holley Historic Site), where Twachtman reigned as the leading art instructor. Not far away Brush House, another boardinghouse, often took up the overflow of visiting artists and doubled as a subject for the painter's brush. When Hassam was in residence he was particularly drawn to the colonial architecture and other old buildings in various states of repair that surrounded the colony.

The Bush-Holley House in Cos Cob, now a property of the Historical Society of the Town of Green-wich, is the site of one of the three Hassam exhibitions. The show there is entitled Childe Hassam: Impressions of Cos Cob and remains on view through September 5. Susan G. Larkin, the guest curator, has selected a number of Hassam's oils, pastels, and watercolors in addition to etchings. He began to make etchings in 1915, during one of his last visits to the colony, having dabbled in the technique earlier in his career when it enjoyed a widespread revival. He was unsatisfied with the results until, in Cos Cob, he met Kerr Eby, who had mastered the technical aspects of etching and from whom he learned a great deal one summer. Hassam then returned to some of his earlier etching plates and reworked them. This exhibition features nineteen of approximately thirty etchings Hassam is known to have executed during his Cos Cob years. These prints have not been shown together since 1916 and are exhibited alongside etchings by Eby.

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The catalogue of this exhibition is written by Larkin and may be obtained by calling the historical society at 203-869-6899.

An exhibition entitled "A Pretty Fine Old Town": Childe Hassam in Old Lyme is on view at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme until September 26. The twenty-two paintings and works on paper, photographs, and archival materials shed light on Hassam's activity in the town starting in 1903, when he spent the summer at Florence Griswold's boardinghouse in the company of other well-known artists. The exhibition's title is taken from one of Hassam's descriptions of the town, to which he returned until 1906.

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The Lyme Art Colony, established in 1900, became a beacon for artists in search of agreeable landscape settings they could paint out of doors. Old Lyme, on the Lieutenant River, was just such a place. Two years after the founding of the colony, artists working there organized selling exhibitions in the local library. During the early years, the tonalist aesthetic was solidly represented, and Hassam, one of the earliest proponents of impressionism, was an anomaly. However, commercial opportunity was important to these emerging artists and not surprisingly Hassam participated in the annual sales between 1903 and 1909, even during summers he spent elsewhere. A work that Hassam referred to as a masterpiece, a large mural of three nudes along the Lieutenant River (illustrated on p. 16), which has not been exhibited for almost a century, is included in this exhibition. Visitors may also tour the Florence Griswold House to see the rooms in which Hassam lived and worked. Amy Ellis is the curator of the show, which does not have a catalogue.

The third Connecticut exhibition may be seen at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford until October 3. It is entitled Childe Hassam and Connecticut Impressionism and includes paintings and etchings by Hassam and his contemporaries including Henry Ward Ranger, Twachtman, Willard LeRoy Metcalf, Charles Harold Davis, and Emil Carlsen. Organized by Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Kriebel curator of American paintings and sculpture at the museum, the show comprises twenty-five paintings and twenty-five prints that survey the transition these artists made from the Barbizon to the impressionist style. This, the most general of the three exhibitions, does much to set the stage and tone for the two other Connecticut shows. There is no catalogue of this exhibition.