Willard Metcalf: Summing It Up

"Northcountry" by Willard Metcalf

"In the fall of 1923, Willard Metcalf embarked on the large Vermont landscape that led to the 'New York Tribune' announcements of 27 March 1924: 'The sale of Abbott Thayer's 'Portrait of a Girl' and Willard L. Metcalf's 'Northcountry,' the latter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, became known yesterday.'

'Northcountry' was painted near Chester in Lower Perkinsville. Metcalf worked there and in Springfield, Vermont, during the last five years of his life. He stayed at the Fullerton Inn (later called the Chester Inn and now called the Inn at long Last0, situated on the green of this charming Vermont town, bounded on the north and south by branches of the Williams River. Frank Benson did a delightful little watercolor at Chester, in 1922, showing Metcalf painting on the banks of a river, presumably the Williams. 

Northcountry' seems to have everything. It might be thought of as a kind of summing-up picture. It has the technical ease of an artist who has had a thorough training and a lifetime of practice; the combination of plein-air tone and Impressionist hue; masterful organization and a sense of space derived from his experience in the Southwest but without that area's limitless expanse; and inspiration from a keen sense of place that is both realistic and poetic. There is a mountain in the background and a New England town. Willard Metcalf's painting was never better. In November 1924 he received a letter from the director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, proposing a one-man exhibition for January 1925. Compared to his first success in 1905, the events of 1924 and 1925 were a triumph.

Willard Metcalf is one of those who has placed an indelible stamp upon American art,' wrote the 'Washington Post' critic on 11 January 1925, 'and who will leave behind him in the record of his life's achievements for the uplift and joy of future generations a priceless heritage.'  The exhibition at the Corcoran was both a critical and a popular success, yet, while it attracted great crowds, none of his paintings sold. That would have to wait for his February show at the Milch Galleries in New York. But the memorial flavor of the 'Washington Post' review proved to be prophetic. On 9 March 1925, Metcalf was dead."

To be continued

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