Willard Metcalf: Life in New York

"Early Spring Afternoon, Central Park"
by Willard Metcalf

"In 1890 Willard Metcalf moved to New York, the financial, commercial, and cultural center of the United States, attracting artists, writers, and creative people in all areas. The artists tended to live downtown, congregating around or near Lower Fifth Avenue at Washington Square. Metcalf and Theodore Robinson, for example, lived near each other on Fifteenth Street. William Merritt Chase worked in the Tenth Street Studio building, designed specifically for artists by Richard Morris Hunt. The National Academy of Design was then on Twenty-third Street, as was The Players, a newly established club housed in Edwin Booth's former residence. Standford White, who redecorated the house, belonged to the club, as did Metcalf, who remained a member for twenty years and used the club as his mailing address during the ineties. 

Metcalf's friend Childe Hassam had his studio there in 1890, and became an unofficial chronicler of Fifth Avenue, describing it in all seasons and at all times of day. From 1890 through 1919 he made a series of paintings that could have inspired such urban scenes by Metcalf as 'Battery Park, Spring' and 'Early Spring Afternoon, Central Park.' But Metcalf was no chronicler of cities, and it is significant that in both of these urband views the park is the dominant element. At this time, however, Metcalf did very little painting, concentrating instead on illustration assignments, teaching, and occasional portrait commissions. When he participated in exhibitions, he showed mostly his French paintings - at least until after his trip to Gloucester in the summer of1895.

Gloucester has always been a great place for painters, an aspect of its activity that would peak in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When Metcalf went there it was already listed in the guide books as 'a great resort of artists, owing partly to the picturesqueness of the town itself, and partly to the fine scenery of Cape Ann.' Metcalf painted 'Gloucester Harbor,' his first American landscape since he left for Europe in 1883, and he could not have chosen a better, more indigenous locale. The subject was American yet also reminiscent of Europe. 

When he exhibited six Gloucester paintings at the Society of American Artists annual exhibition in 1896, it was the confidence, assurance, and skill of 'Gloucester Harbor' that won him the coveted Webb Prize. 'It was the beginning of his success,' Childe Hassam judged. And Hassam took the credit for it: 'I got him to go there and start his work.'" 

To be continued

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