The New Hope Artists Colony: Robert Spencer, Art Beginnings

"On the Canal, New Hope" by Robert Spencer

"Robert Spencer specialized in scenes of rural mills and tenements that he rendered in the impressionist aesthetic. He is the only major American Impressionist painter to dedicate much of his art to the working class and their environment. Unlike his colleagues he often chose to depict the tedious aspects of daily existence. However, the miseries of poverty were only rarely depicted, but rather conveyed the excitement at simply being alive.

Spencer was born on 1 December 1879, at Harvard, Nebraska. His father was a Swedenborgian clergyman, who edited essays by George Inness dealing with aspects of that faith. Spencer admitted that as a boy, 'father changed his parish so often - so I never had what is called a hometown. I left Nebraska when I was three months old for Illinois.' He then lived in Missouri, Virginia, and finally settled in New York, where he graduated from high school in Yonkers in 1899.

Spencer then began attending classes at the National Academy of Design. This instruction continued until 1901 under such artists as Francis Coates Jones, Edwin Howland Blashfield, and Robert Blum. From 1903 to 1905, Spencer attended classes at the New York School of Art where his instructors included William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri. Chase encouraged the young Spencer and stated, 'You will be a painter, sir.' Chase may have encouraged a preference for Impressionist aesthetics. In subject matter, however, Spencer would be more heavily influenced by Henri and members of the Ashcan School in terms of his interest in lower-class subject matter.

In 1905 Spencer may have spent almost a year in a civil engineering office in New York as a draftsman and as a surveyor. He did not enjoy this work and never deviated from painting as a career."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Artists Colony: John Fulton Folinsbee, Maine

"End of the Day, Gloucester Harbor" by John Folinsbee

"In the mid-1930s, John Fulton Folinsbee and his family began spending their summers in Maine. He bought a farmhouse at Murphy's Corner, between Beth and Wiscasset, in 1949. Despite his intense wariness of the ocean, he embarked on a new aspect of his career - as a marine painter. His 'Off Seguin (Ellingwood Rock)' was awarded the 1952 Palmer Marine Prize by the National Academy of Design. With the prize money, Folinsbee bought a 25-foot motorized Hampton dory (flat-bottomed open boat) that he named "Sketch" and equipped as a floating studio. He wrote:

'One day I suddenly realized that the waves of a heavy sea duplicate what El Greco did in painting the heavy folds of his drapery. The quick turn of the waves is like that of his folds, in that the darkest dark is against the lightest light. The greatest contrast comes at the sharpest point where the wave turns up—where there is a dark, there is a light - it is that way in the folds of El Greco's garments. I've always been fascinated with the way he twists those big folds—exaggeration perhaps, but true in expressing the play of light on form.'

As his son-in-law Peter G. Cook observed, after the dramatic contrasts in weather, light, and landscape of Maine, the Pennsylvania countryside seemed a bit tame. It was Maine that captured the imagination of Folinsbee's later years.

Sadly Folinsbee was diagnosed with cancer in the late 1960s, which further weakened his right arm. He stopped painting in 1971, and died a year later in New Hope."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "John Fulton Folinsbee" on Wikipedia and "About John Fulton Folinsbee" from "The John Folinsbee Catalogue Raisonee.")

The New Hope Artists Colony: John Fulton Folinsbee

"Canal, Trenton" by John F. Folinsbee

"If John Fulton Folinsbee is normally associated with the New Hope School and Impressionism, he only painted in that style for a short period. By the mid-1920s, the artist began to study the work of Paul Cezanne and his landscapes demonstrate an exploration of his subjects’ structure and contour. By the late 1930s, when he immersed himself in the work of El Greco, Goya, and the French Expressionist Maurice Vlaminck, Folinsbee’s style became highly expressive. His brush strokes loosened and lengthened. The shimmering, gem-like colors and bright light that characterized his early work were replaced by dramatic contrasts in light and dark, and with color that was deeper and more intense. Russell Lynes asserted that the artist’s best work was created from this moment on. “After he escaped from the formulas that permeated the Impressionists,” Lynes wrote, Folinsbee’s “brush became more flowing, bolder, surer, and more personal, more concerned with contour and bones than with skin.”*

 

"The Great Depression dealt a heavy blow to artists, with little market for luxury goods such as landscape paintings. Folinsbee resorted to bartering his works for services, including dentistry for his daughters. Portraits – for which he typically charged $400 to $500 for a head-and-bust and $1,000 for a three-quarter length – became a larger part of his output. Edward Beatty Rowan, assistant chief of the Public Buildings Administration's Section of Painting and Sculpture, offered him a commission for a post office mural in Freeland, Pennsylvania. Completed in 1938, Folinsbee's mural is both pastoral and industrial: depicting the town's church spires peeking out from among the autumnal-colored hills, but also featuring the town's massive coal breaker and long culm dump.

 

Folinsbee was also a teacher. One of his better-known students, Peter G. Cook (who married his daughter Joan in 1938), became a colleague and friend. The pair collaborated on murals for two other federal projects: the Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Paducah, Kentucky, (1939), and the post office in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania (1942)."**

To be continued

1. "About John Fulton Folinsbee" by Kirsten M. Jensen in "The John F. Folinsbee Catalogue Raisonne."

2. "John Fulton Folinsbee" on Wikipedia.)  

The New Hope Artists Colony: John Fulton Folinsbee, Recognition

"(Untitled) Woodstock" by John F. Folinsbee

"In the early decades of the twentieth century, John Fulton Folinsbee’s reputation extended to Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, and Houston, where his works were regularly included in annual exhibitions of contemporary American art. His increasing stature in American art was recognized by the National Academy in 1919, when he was elected an associate member at the age of twenty-seven (he became a full academician in 1928).

Although Folinsbee exhibited at museums, galleries, and private clubs in Pennsylvania, he never pursued active representation or membership in them, instead focusing his professional attention on the nation’s art capital, New York, while at the same time broadening recognition of his work in exhibitions across the country. For several years early in his career, Folinsbee was represented in New York by Macbeth Gallery—the first gallery in New York devoted to American art and the site of the legendary exhibition of The Eight in 1908. Beginning in 1917, and for nearly four decades afterward, he was represented by Ferargil Gallery, located at 24 East 49th Street, where he had a solo show nearly every year. In 1923, he became a founding member of the Grand Central Art Galleries, a cooperative located in the Grand Central Terminal building and devoted to promoting contemporary American art. Folinsbee was elected a member of the Salmagundi Club in 1913, a Life Member of the National Arts Club in 1921, and a member of the Century Association in 1937. 

He had his first solo exhibition at the Hillyer Gallery at Smith College in Massachusetts, in 1916. From then, until well into the 1940s, his work could be seen in traveling exhibitions organized by the American Federation of Arts, as well as in various international expositions and exhibitions in American embassies. By his mid-thirties, he had a national reputation that extended to Texas, Ohio, Missouri, California, Indiana, and elsewhere—far beyond the boundaries of Bucks County, with which he is so closely associated today. In 1953, Folinsbee was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1953, one of the highest honors an artist can receive."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "About John Fulton Folinsbee" by Kirsten M. Jensen in "The John F. Folinsbee Catalogue Raisonne.")

The New Hope Artists Colony: John Fulton Folinsbee

"Frozen River" by John Folinsbee

"Edward Redfield's reputation attracted several artists to the New Hope area. John Fulton Folinsbee, Walter Baum, and George Sotter were three artists much indebted to Redfield's painterly methods, and like Redfield they specialized in winter landscapes.

Many would consider Folinsbee to be the most gifted of the three. He was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1892. By 1906 he had contracted polio, which forced him to spend his life in a wheelchair. He went to Woodstock, New York, in 1912 to study with Birge Harrison at the Art Students League Summer School. But Harrison had already retired from teaching and had left the school under the supervision of his assistant, John F. Carlson, an Impressionist landscape painter. Although he studied with Carlson for three summers, Folinsbee also received much help and encouragement from Harrison.

In 1914 Folinsbee married Ruth Baldwin. They first came to New Hope in 1916 to visit Birge Harrison, who was residing there at the time. The Folinsbees became enchanted with the area and remained. After eight years they built a home overlooking the river in New Hope. Of the Impressionists who settled along River Road, Folinsbee's home was the closest to the town. 

Edward Redfield and John Folinsbee became good friends. Redfield was Folinsbee's most important early influence, and they were close friends for the remainder of their lives. But Redfield was a rugged man and Folinsbee was disabled. Of course, this makes Folinsbee's achievement all the more heroic."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Artists Colony: Walter Schofield, Last Years

"King's Garden, Godolphin Manor" by Walter Schofield

"From 1925 to 1937, Walter Schofield and his wife resided at 'High House,' in Otley, England. In September 1937 their son Sydney purchased a grand residence, Godolphin Manor in Cornwall. The manor dated from the fifteenth century, and seemed a natural decision because the Schofields had a very active interest in architecture. Muriel worked in the cause of preservation and protection of early buildings and was cofounder of the Suffolk Preservation Society. Sydney was an architect, and Walter Schofield liked painting architecture and painted several views of the gardens.

Because of restrictions placed on travel between Great Britain and the United States during World War II, Schofield was forced to remain in the United Kingdom throughout the period. As the war continued, he longed to return to the United States. He even began to add snow to Cornish landscapes in imitation of snow scenes he had painted in the United States. 

Unfortunately, he never returned there. He died on 1 March 1944. His remains were first buried at Lelant in Cornwall, but after the war he was reinterred at Saint James the Less Church in Philadelphia.

Schofield had a restless spirit and he enjoyed traveling. Yet it was his gift to be able to capture the mood and character of the many places he visited. Along with Edward Redfield he was chiefly responsible for disseminating and popularizing the Pennsylvania Impressionist style of winter landscape painting."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Art Colony: Walter E. Schofield, California

 

"Morning Light, Tujunga" (1934) by Walter Schofield

"During the first three decades of the twentieth century, Walter Schofield was regarded as one of America's leading landscape painters. Like Redfield, he was part of the art establishment, and he often served on exhibition juries and selection committees. Because of their establishment positions, Schofield and Redfield helped to shape the aesthetics of American landscape painting during the early twentieth century.

As a result of exhibiting with Gardner Symons at Stendahl Galleries in Los Angeles, Schofield spent much time during the thirties in California, Arizona and New Mexico. But the late twenties, the state of his marriage deteriorated, which resulted in the artist spending increasingly more time in the United States. He spent at least nine months annually in the United States, and no more than three months with his wife in Great Britain. He described his life in California in a letter to her: 

 'The winter has set in here - it comes on in the form of rain - very heavy and usually with the night - but the next day will be fine and sunny. The hills are now all green and very beautiful with the brightest colored grass you ever saw. In all the time I have been taking a class outside, the weather never has stopped me... On sketching days we are out from 9 a.m. until 4 or 5 p.m., making two sketches and three at times."

He began to produce a series of views of the American West. By this time his style of painting had become unfashionable, and because the artist had inherited a substantial amount of money from his parents, he no longer found the need to create the large, exhibition-oriented snow scenes for which he become noted. Generally his late works are sketchlike and are often not fully developed. In later years, his smaller paintings no longer served as studies for the major exhibition painting. It seems as if he was satisfied to rely on his past reputation."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.) 

The New Hope Art Colony: Walter E. Schofield, WWI

"Summer's Pageant" by Walter E. Schofield

"Walter E. Schofield joined the British Army in 1915 as a private soldier in the twenty-fourth Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. The artist justified entering the fighting of the First World War in a letter to Robert Henri:

'At my time one does not as a rule take up the soldier's profession but it was not love that forced me on - but the strong desire to do what I could to prevent Germany goose-stepping over the world and help force her out of France.'

In 1916 Schofield received a commission from the Royal Artillery through his friend Julius Olsson. He went to France as a second lieutenant in the artillery, took part in the battle of the Somme, accompanied the Army of the Occupation to Cologne and was promoted to the rank of captain. Although Schofield adapted to army life better than most artists, the war was still a cause of despair. On 21 October 1916, he wrote to the director of the Corcoran Gallery:

'Believe me boy that your letter was more than just welcome. Like a voice from the pleasant days of old when you and I walked the streets of Washington together...how far off they seem. And it is good to hear that picture shows are still going and that I once painted! Could you see me now! I'm a bloom'n Captain now in the Royal Artillery and have charge of air defenses of a most important place... How I want to paint! If I could just smell paint it would do me good! I have painted the guns under my command most artistically for disguising purposes - and that was a comfort.'

During the war the artist only painted one landscape, but he retired from the army with the rank of major."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Artists Colony: Walter E. Schofield

"The Rapids" by Walter E. Schofield

"At times even an artist as rugged as Walter Schofield was thwarted by the force of nature. On 14 November, 1911, Schofield was in Marlboro, Massachusetts, painting snow, probably in advance of its arrival in Pennsylvania. He wrote to his wife: 'Today I went out in the morning to work but the wind was so strong with about 8 degrees of frost that I had to give it up. It just seemed to go right through me and besides, the easel blew over every few minutes.'

In another letter he outlined and justified his approach to landscape painting: 'The landscape painter is of necessity, an outdoors man... For vitality and convincing quality only come to the man who serves, not in the studio, but out in the open where even the things he fights against strengthen him, because you see, nature is always vital, even in her implicit moods and never denies a vision to the real lover.'

One of his boldest and most dynamic snow scenes is 'The Rapids,' ca. 1914. In this work the artist employs an extremely high horizon line and centers the viewer's attention in the foreground on a snowcapped clump of rocks and the turbulent waters of the rapids. In this vivid winter landscape, the artist conveys the vigor of nature and emphasizes the sensation of iciness and the effect of motion in this study of rushing water. It was in such a virile subject that Schofield found his forte. The power of the subject is emphasized by the scale of the work, which measures 50" x 60"."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Art Colony: Elmer Schofield, Rivals

"Across the River" by Walter Schofield

"Although no correspondence between Water Schofield and Edward Redfield has come to light, they maintained a close friendship until 1904. Schofield once stated that 'the influence of one's friends, fellow painters and artists is really a very important and extremely difficult thing to assess.' In one letter to his wife he wrote: 'I went to see Redfield, spent two nights there and did a lot of camping. It really does one good to get a chance to see other men's work and mentally take notes.'

According to Redfield, he told Schofield about a landscape composition of a scene from his own front yard in Center Bridge, which he intended to create for the Carnegie Institute's annual exhibition of 1904. Schofield returned to St. Ives and created the same scene from memory, although Redfield admitted that Schofield changed the natural configuration of the landscape. What is more, Schofield apparently began to use the bold, painterly approach to landscape painting that Redfield had developed around 1900. Schofield's resulting painting, 'Across the River,' was awarded the Medal of the First Class by the Carnegie Institute in 1904. 

This greatly upset Redfield, who was on the Jury of Award for this exhibition and felt that Schofield had stolen his idea, let along his painting technique. Redfield told Schofield, 'You keep out of my front yard after this... You paint your own subjects.' After 1904 Redfield and Schofield became arch rivals, and to the best of my knowledge, Schofield did not paint in the Center Bridge or New Hope area again."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Artists Colony: Walter Elmer Schofield, St. Ives

"Trenwith - Cornish Farm" by Walter E. Schofield

"While at St. Ives, a picturesque fishing port with winding streets and stone cottages, Walter Schofield became acquainted with the local art colony of British artists. In 1882 James Whistler and Walter Richard Sickert visited the town, and is is from this time that St. Ives became associated with new developments in British art. Prominent St. Ives artists included Sir Alfred East, Julius Olsson, Algernon Talmage, Moffat Lindner and Louis Grier. Unlike the nearby Newlyn art colony, which was noted for figure painting, the painters of St. Ives gained fame for their landscape and marine paintings. Schofield shared with the British artists of St. Ives a love of paint en plein air and a preference for large-scale canvases. 

Although Schofield never considered himself a British painter, he was a member of the Roayal Society of British Artists, the Royal Society of Oil Painters, the St. Ives Art Club, and the Chelsea Arts Club in London. He also exhibited twice at the Royal Academy and was well-respected by British painters. At the time of Schofield's death, English papers printed 'An Appreciation' of him by Stanhope Forbes, the founder of the Newlyn Art Colony. Schofield did not seek English patronage and found his best market, even for his English scenes, in the United States.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Artists Colony: Walter Elmer Schofield

"Hill Country" by Walter E. Schofield

"Although Walter Elmer Schofield did not live in Bucks County, he was nevertheless considered a leading exponent of the Pennsylvania School. He was born in Philadelphia and attended local elementary and high schools there and entered classes at Swarthmore College for about a year. After leaving the college he spent eighteen months on a ranch in San Antonio, Texas, living the life of a cowboy. While there he produced a number of drawings of life in the West. They depicted rugged western types and even a covered wagon. In describing these works, the artist himself noted that 'the drawings were awful but the cowboys used to say, 'Gee, that's great.' It may have been due to their encouragement that he decided to pursue painting as a career. 

After attending classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, he left for France in late 1892 to study at the Academie Julian under William Adolphe Bouguereau, Gabriel Ferrier and Henri Doucet. Thus he began a career half lived in the States and half lived abroad.

After marrying a British citizen, Muriel Redmayne, who had been visiting Philadelphia with her parents, he was persuaded to settle in England. Although he established residence there, he made annual trips to the States without his wife, usually remaining from October through April. He would devote most of his energy to painting rural snow scenes when not attending to his obligations among galleries and art institutions. Usually by late spring, he would return to his wife in Cornwall, where he would remain for the height of the summer season. Beginning in 1902 he wrote often to his wife, and his letters give insight into his philosophy and painting methods."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Philadelphia Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Artists Colony: Edward Redfield, Pt. 8

"The Brook at Carversville" by Edward Redfield

"After Edward Redfield stopped painting, he began to produce crafts in the early American style. He took pleasure in making hooked rugs from discarded pieces of fabric. Many of these are pictorial, and they often have complex compositions. It is not surprising that some rugs resemble his paintings.

He also made painted chests in the manner of Pennsylvania painted furniture that display an arts and crafts aesthetic, and he made Windsor chairs and other reproductions of early American furniture. Perhaps one of his most successful decorative objects is a tole tray on which he painted a snow scene of an outdoor auction.

Redfield died on 19 October 1965, at the age of ninety-six in Center Bridge, Pennsylvania. Although he had been considered the leading American landscape painter in the early twentieth century, his reputation rapidly faded. His art was suited to his environment, but most importantly it was an art suited to himself."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Art Colony: Edward Redfield, Pt. 7

"The Burning of Center Bridge" by Edward Redfield

"Edward Redfield violated his usual practice of painting at 'one go' and created two of the most dramatic works of his career. On Sunday, 22 July 1923, lightning struck the one-hundred-and-twelve-year-old Center Bridge, very close to the artist's home. Redfield and Lathrop viewed the burning bridge from the river bank and watched firemen fruitlessly attempting to extinguish the blaze. Redfield later remarked, 'Lathrop said it was a pity it couldn't be painted. So I took out an envelope and made some notes and painted all the next day. The following day, I painted it again.' 'The Burning of Center Bridge' is one of the two resulting versions.

Redfield's art changed little after 1920 and there are few stylistic differences between Redfield snow scenes of the 1920s and 1940s. During the 1930s the artist often drove as far as the Poconos in search of subject matter. Previously his subjects had been found within a mile from his home. Although he never lost his skill as a painter, some late works reveal that his painterly technique was not as flexible as it had been and that his response was not as fresh or spontaneous.

His wife died in 1947, which brought him to a state of despair. In that year he took hundreds of paintings that he held in his inventory and burned them in a huge bonfire in his yard. Redfield felt that the paintings he destroyed did not represent his finest work. Although no inventory was taken of the works that were burned, it is possible to draw some conclusions about what he discarded. In the artist's estate, there were no paintings before 1899, and there were substantially fewer paintings after 1930. Fortunately, several important early Redfield paintings survived in private collections.

He ceased to paint in 1953. He explained: 'I was outside one day. My insteps were hurting. It was very windy, and I had trouble keeping my easel up. So I quit. The main reason, though, was that I wasn't as good as I had been, and I didn't want to be putting my name on an 'old man's stuff' just to keep going.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Art Colony: Edward Redfield, Pt. 6

"The Canal Stockton" by Edward Redfield

"Edward Redfield won many awards in rapid succession, including a Gold Medal from the Art Club of Philadelphia in 1896, a bronze medal from the Paris Exposition in 1900, a prize from the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901, and the Temple Medal from the Pennsylvania Academy in 1903; and by 1904 he won the Second Hallgarten Prize from the National Academy of Design, the Shaw Fund Prize from the Society of American Artists, and a silver medal from the St. Louis Exposition. Such honors continued to be awarded to Redfield in profusion until the 1930s. He was considered the head of the leading school of landscape painting by such critics as Du Bois and Laurvik, and because he often served on juries of award and selection committees, he was in part responsible for which landscape paintings would receive approval and win awards. 

Therefore he had a key position in American landscape painting during the early twentieth century, which perhaps provoked such a criticism as this one: 'He has been the recipient of a considerable amount of praise, at the same time that whispered suspicions and no end of scandal, art scandal be it understood, have hovered about him as persistently as atmosphere.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.) 

The New Hope Art Colony: Edward Redfield, Pt. 5

"The Rock Garden, Monhegan Island, Maine"
by Edward Redfield

"Because Edward Redfield often painted under brutal weather conditions, he often had to anchor his easel to trees to prevent the wind from carrying off his canvases. He had to use a substantial amount of linseed oil to keep his paint malleable, and he used a heavy glove on his palette hand. He made no preliminary sketches but painted directly from nature. Hence there are no known Redfield drawings or watercolors depicting local snow scenes.

Beginning in 1902 the Redfield family spent their summers at Booth Bay Harbor, Maine, due to the generosity of Dr. Samuel Woodward, who financed these annual vacations. Eventually the artist acquired a home at Booth Bay Harbor, which became noted as a charming and picturesque fishing village. In June 1903 Robert Henri and his wife decided to spend part of their summer with the Redfields. Henri and Redfield sailed about neighboring islands in search of suitable subject matter. Henri was so taken by the beauty of Monhegan Island that he considered setting up a studio there. The studio never materialized, but Henri's admiration for Monhegan was transmitted to Rockwell Kent and George Bellows, who painted some of their finest works there.

Redfield's many Maine seascapes add variety to his oeuvre. His finest Maine scenes often depict a rock garden on Monhegan Island and the flowers in these works are painted with brilliant colors. However, his Maine seascapes, in general, were never as acclaimed as his Pennsylvania winter scenes."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.

The New Hope Art Colony: Edward Redfield, Pt. 4

"The Island" by Edward Redfield

"As an artist Edward Redfield seemed to be searching for American roots. After settling at Center Bridge, he admired all that was considered to possess an American character, and he discounted American paintings, sculpture and architecture that overtly displayed European features. For example, he criticized Henry Chapman Mercer tor looking to European sources in the creation of his eccentric Bucks Country castle, Fonthill.

"Winter Landscape" by Birge Harrison

Redfield's Impressionist snow scenes make interesting comparisons with those of Birge Harrison, a leading Tonalist landscape painter, who was regarded as one of the premier interpreters of the American snowscape. In general Harrison usually employed simple but evocative compositions that create an intense mood. He painted from memory. Redfield painted from nature on the spot. Harrison preferred twilight hours. Redfield preferred the glaring, reflective quality of midday snow. The snow scenes of Redfield and Harrison best represent two leading and contrasting trends in American landscape painting during the early twentieth century.

"Winter at the River Simoa" by Frits Thaulow

Although Redfield's assertive, painterly style was considered to be highly original, the art of the Norwegian Impressionist, Fritz Thaulow, was the most significant European influence on his work. He had visited Thaulow's Paris studio to select one of Thaulow's paintings for an unidentified patron. In a broader sense, Thaulow's influence filtered from Redfield to other Pennsylvania Impressionists and to American landscape painting in general."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Art Colony: Edward Redfield, Pt. 3

"Melting Snow" by Edward Redfield

"In 1891 Edward Redfield and Robert Henri were at the Hotel Deligant in the village of Bois-le-Roi in the forest of Fontainebleau. Redfield's future spouse, Elise Devin Deligant, was the daughter of the innkeeper. At the inn Redfield, Henri, Grafly, and other young artists would have long discussions about art and aesthetics. It was at the inn the Redfield became fascinated by local snow scenes. He had hoped to become a portrait painter, but it was at this point that he abandoned portraiture, at least professionally, and decided to take up landscape painting as his livelihood. Of portraiture Redfield stated: 'With landscape, if I make it good enough, there are many who will appreciate it. Portrait painting must please the subject as a general thing - or no pay! It's a hired man's job.' Several of the young artists at the inn submitted works to the Paris Salon of 1891. Redfield's first snow scene, 'Canal en Hiver,' was accepted, while a full-length portrait by Henri was rejected.

After a trip back to the States in 1892 for a one-man exhibition in Boston, Redfield returned to London in 1893, where he married Elise Deligant. He always referred to her as 'Madame.' After the tragic death of their first child, they returned to France where their son Laurent was born. The artist commemorated the event by recording the view from the house where his son was born, and Robert Henri painting the five-month-old baby's portrait. Sadly the death of their firstborn was a cause of despair and mental illness for his wife.

After their return to Center Bridge, Pennsylvania in 1900, Redfield began to produce the local snow scenes for which he became noted as the leading American painter of the winter landscape, and his monumental canvases are the antithesis of the generally small and sentimental snow scenes of the earlier nineteenth-century American landscape painters. His works were broadly and rapidly painted at just 'one go' as Henry Rolfe had instructed him when he was a teenager. He completed his snow scenes outdoors, usually completing a fifty by fifty-six inch canvas in eight hours. Redfield stated: 'What I wanted to do was to go outdoors and capture the look of a scene, whether it was a brook or a bridge, as it looked on a certain day.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Art Colony: Edward Redfield, Pt. 2

"Winter Brook" by Edward Redfield

"Edward Redfield studied at the Pennsylvania Academy from 1887 to 1889 His instructors included Thomas Anshutz, James Kelly, and Thomas Hovenden. Thomas Eakins had left the Academy before Redfield's enrollment, but Anshutz maintained his tradition. This meant long, careful study of plaster casts and the nude model, anatomy lessons, and dissection of human and animal carcasses. While there, Redfield became acquainted with fellow students, Charles Grafly, Robert Henri, and Alexander Calder. Henri often spent weekends at the Redfield home.

In 1889 Redfield's father agreed to send his son fifty dollars per month to finance a period of study in Europe. Redfield left for Paris with Charles Grafly and met Robert Henri there. Redfield and Henri attended classes at the Julian Academy, a school which basically catered to foreigners who had difficulty gaining entrance to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. His instructors were William Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury. These instructors insisted on the study of the model for an eight-hour period instead of three as at the Pennsylvania Academy. But they allowed the students to work as they pleased. Redfield also learned from the other students, who were from all over the world, and many styles and techniques were being employed during the classes.

Redfield was interested in modern painters, not the masters of the past, unlike Henri, who was intrigued by both the art of the past and that in the present. Redfield stated: 'I am sorry! But I did not admire any old masters. I generally went to the Luxembourgh - was interested in Monet, Thaulow, Pissaro mostly.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Art Colony: Edward Willis Redfield

"Village of Carversville" by Edward Redfield

"Edward Willis Redfield was acknowledged as the central and most important figure in the Pennsylvania School of Landscape Painting because he developed a style and method of painting that became most associated with the Pennsylvania Impressionists. He was born in December 1869 in Bridgeville, Delaware. 

Redfield had determined to become an artist at an early age. When he was seven, he exhibited a drawing of a cow in a competition for school children at the Centennial Exposition in 1876. Although his father, who owned plant nurseries and sold fruit and flowers, had hoped his son would follow him in the family business, he nevertheless encouraged his son's interest in painting.

Redfield eventually hoped to be accepted into the Pennsylvania Academy, so in preparation for studying there, he received training from a commercial artist, Henry Rolfe. The young artist was given drawing paper, a drawing board, a few sticks of charcoal, and a plaster cast of Phidias' Zeus to serve as model. At the conclusion of each lesson, which lasted an hour, the sketch was complete, and Rolfe would give advice and make corrections. He suggested that a work of art should be made at 'one go' or at one sitting, taken directly from the subject, and even if incomplete, should never be retouched or redone. This was an important method of working that Redfield employed throughout his career. Almost all of his paintings were rendered at 'one go'; he made no sketches to study from but worked directly from nature."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Art Colony: William Langson Lathrop, Pt. 2

"Lily Pond, Lake George" by William Lathrop

"William Langson Lathrop's unique blend of Impressionism and Tonalism creates a visual language that resonates with viewers. Much of his painting from 1900 to 1920 can be characterized as being Tonal rather than Impressionist. The Tonalists favored the prevalence of a single tone above others and preferred the contemplative and evocative moods of nature. Like many Tonalist painters, Lathrop rarely painted directly from nature, but he took many nature walks, where he would make drawings that he would later incorporate in his paintings. As stated by Sherman Gwinn, 'He was not a painter of pictures, but a painter of memories.'

By the twenties Tonalism had faded from Lathrop's art entirely. He came to Lake George to recover after suffering a heart attack, but instead of resting and against the advice of his doctor, he surveyed the area in search of landscape compositions. Lathrop's 'Lily Pond, Lake George,' certainly must be considered one of his most Impressionist works. Lake George had attracted many landscape painters in the past, including members of the Hudson River School.  This work shows some of his most radical brushwork, which is both flecked and broken, actually revealing areas of unpainted canvas.

During the late twenties, Lathrop built a boat which he named the Widge and spent much time making small oil sketches on board. He became acquainted with the noted scientist, Albert Einstein. In the summer of 1937, Einstein joined Lathrop on the Widge, and they sailed along the north shore of Long Island. The artist gave the scientist two of his paintings.

On 21 September 1938, during the great hurricane of that year, Lathrop was anchored off Montauk Pooint when a fishing boat cut the anchor line, causing the Widge to sail across the bay. Lathrop, who was alone on this voyage, jumped ship and attempted to swim toward shore before suffering a fatal heart attack. Although the artist died, both the Widge and his body were found, in addition to his last painting, which had survived the hurricane."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Art Colony: William Langson Lathrop

"Ely's Bridge" by William Langson Lathrop

"William Langson Lathrop was considered the 'dean' of the New Hope Art Colony, and had come a long way from his beginnings on his family's farm in Painesville, Ohio. The farm was located near the 'broad expanse of Lake Erie, ice-bound, bleak and forbidding throughout the long winters and reluctant springs.' During 1877-79 he spent his winters teaching in a little red schoolhouse to a class of thirty to forty pupils. In the summers he worked on the farm, but he always continued to sketch and draw. 

In 1880 he worked three months at 'Harper's' and was counseled that 'This is no place for you. It is educating you straight away from your bent... Go straight back to the farm and keep on studying as you have been doing.' He listened and his work plowing the fields and living in close relationship with nature informed his landscape painting later on. Indeed several critics noted that Lathrop excelled at painting 'raw earth.'

Lathrop spent from July 1887 to April 1888 in New York. He studied briefly with William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League. He stated that he painted three hours per day under Chase and that he was the only male member of the class; the remainder was comprised of six women. Of Chase, Lathrop wrote that he was 'contagiously energetic. No humor. No poetry.'

In April to July of 1899, Lathrop visited England, France and Holland and spent much time absorbing and sketching the rural countryside. In England he met and married Annie Burt of Oxford. He passed his time with long-time friend Henry Snell and with the Tonalist painter, Henry Ward Ranger.

He worked on his art and improved until he was officially recognized after winning the coveted W.T. Evans Prize at the Twenty-ninth Annual New York Watercolor Society Show. All six of his entries sold at twice the price he had expected. The resulting publicity brought him the patronage of Geoerge S. Hearn and William T. Evans. William MacBeth, a noted dealer, soon began to handle Lathrop's paintings. His success attracted a group of students, and he began teaching outdoors during the summers of 1897 and 1898 in the Poconos."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)

The New Hope Art Colony: Beginnings

"Twilight After Storm" by William Lathrop

"The Late Nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the development of prominent American art colonies. Among these were colonies in Dublin, New Hampshire; Old Lyme and Cos Cob, Connecticut; Woodstock, New York; Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico, Provincetown, Massachusetts; and New Hope, Pennsylvania. Many developed as a response to summer plein air landscape painting, which French and Munich trained American art students had practiced abroad. Many young painters who desired to pursue careers in landscape painting were attracted to Bucks County for the beauty of its landscape as well as its proximity to New York and Philadelphia.

A physician, Dr. George Marshall, rather than an artist, was most responsible for the founding of the New Hope Art Colony. His property was a 500-acre plot called Phillips Mill, which would later become an exhibition place for the Pennsylvania Impressionists, as well as for generations of Bucks County painters and sculptors to follow. It was Dr. Marshall who persuaded William Langson Lathrop, a noted landscape painter, to come to the area. This long-time friend ended up buying the miller's house and surrounding farm from Marshall in 1899.

In 1902 'The Philadelphia Times' described Lathrop and his surroundings as follows;

'William Lathrop... was lured away from New York some years ago by this bit of Pennsylvania loveliness. The ancient inn he opened and refitted as his home. The interior of the cooper shop he transformed into his studio, and here he has lived ever since with his family, master of the entire settlement, presiding over his eighty surrounding acres and keeping them secure from intrusion and alteration. An ideal place in which the artists may dream their dreams and transfer them to canvas without fear of interruption from the outside world... The little cottages have gradually been fitted up to accommodate extra guests... In some, happy families of art students live the year round...'

Many artists settled in the area because of William Lathrop's influence. Daniel Garber, Morgan Colt, Margaret Spencer, and Mary Perkins Taylor and her husband. His wife became hostess to ever-increasing numbers of visitors at her Sunday afternoon teas. Guests included neighbors as well as Lathrop's students and other artists who moved into the area."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)