Theodore Robinson

"The Old Bridge" by Theodore Robinson

American artist Will Hicok Low wrote a most interesting autobiography, "A Chronicle of Friendships, 1873-1900," which includes this chapter on artist Theodore Robinson.

"Among the new arrivals one year was Theodore Robinson, who, timidly, with due respect for my two years' experience in Paris student life, sought my acquaintance; and an intimacy of closest friendship was established, which only ceased with his death in 1896. Frail, with a husky, asthmatic voice and a laugh that shook his meagre sides and yet hardly made itself heard, timid and reticent, saying little, yet blessed with as keen a sense of humour as anyone I have ever known, Robinson was received at once into our little circle with the highest favour.

 

It was to be many years before his work shed a certain dryness and under the influence of the Impressionistic school blossomed into colour and achieved popularity of the kind which the painter occasionally vouchsafes to his fellow. Popularity with the collector and the general public he never attained during his lifetime, though I am glad to think now how much it appealed to me from the first, and how when his day of recognition arrived, though day had closed for him, it brought to me no element of surprise. 

 

My friend Theodore Robinson had arrived back from Paris and had returned to the home of his parents in Wisconsin. It was easy to read between the lines of his letters that Evansville, Wisconsin, "was not Athens" - or Paris. Fortunately Robinson was extricated from those surroundings to teach at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts."

 

To be continued...