Willard Metcalf: Illustrator

"Sunset Hour on the West Lagoon, World's Columbian
Exposition of 1893" by Willard Metcalf

"When Willard Metcalf returned from France in the late 1880s, he became more active as an illustrator, working primarily for 'Scribner's.' Added to those commissions, he began to receive work from 'Century Magazine' as well in 1891. In 1893 he was commissioned by the Executive Committee of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago to do 'Sunset Hour on the West Lagoon.' In addition Scribner's sponsored a special exhibition in which four of Metcalf's illustrations were included, and in the Fine Arts Building he was represented with three paintings from his years abroad. He wasn't painting very much at this time, working instead at illustration and on his French studies, teaching at the Art Students League and at Cooper Union, and executing a few portrait commissions. But illustration absorbed most of his time and energy, a reflection in part of the avid interest and taste of the American public.

By 1896 Metcalf was impatient with illustration. The year before, in Gloucester, he had tasted personal satisfaction and professional success with his landscape painting - the first time he had seriously concentrated on this subject since his return from Europe. 'Gloucester Harbor,' one of his early successful efforts at pure Impressionist painting - picture 'light-filled and casual,' won the prestigious Webb Prize at the Society of American Artists' annual exhibition in 1896. So, as he began to chafe under the constraints of illustration, the demands of the story, the restrictions on color, the enforced use of obvious imagery, and the burdens of deadlines, then left the field of illustration altogether. But he also gave up its rewards: the money, the fame, and the good life, which for some could be very good indeed."

To be continued

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