Willard Metcalf: First One-Man Show

"The Pool" by Willard Metcalf

"Although Willard Metcalf painted in a more Impressionist style, he did not give up his concern for good draftsmanship or what he believed was its importance; nor did he give up a Tonal approach entirely, refining it and making it more subtle instead. Getting back to Maine in 1904 proved not only a good decision but also an important step in Metcalf's career.

He also began to teach again, this time an evening class at the Rhode Island School of Design, commuting there once a week. He traveled to New York in November, where he began negotiations for his first one-man show there. He was forty-six years old and began to keep a scrapbook of notices and critical reviews. Alluding to the revived and fresh direction of his work, he noted on the inside cover, 'A partial history of the Renaissance.' When he finally returned to New York, after a year in Maine, this 'renaissance' had yielded some twenty paintings, which were included in his exhibition at Fishel, Adler, & Schwartz in February 1905. 

In March that year he exhibited with The Ten, and in April with Dodge McKnight at the Rhode Island School of Design. He ascribed this change for the better to his sojourn in Maine, where he had a chance to uncover what was essential in his painting. Suddenly he was perceived as an artist who could truly paint a landscape, particularly the landscape of New England. He was seen to have the special ability to synthesize studio draftsmanship, Tonalism, and Impressionism without being dogmatic or imitative, and make it coalesce into something personal, into a style of his own. Molded by his forceful personality, it was subtle and sensitive, a style that he would develop and refine and play back for the next twenty years. It finally came together in that first one-man show in New York in 1905, and the critics were delighted."

To be continued

(Excerpt from "Sunlight and Shadow: The Life and Art of Willard L. Metcalf" by  Elizabeth de Veer and Richard J. Boyle.)