Childe Hassam, Appledore, August 16 and 21, 1906, to Florence Griswold, 51
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176 CHILD E HAS SAM, AMERICAN IMPRESS I 0 N IS T Shore, exh. cat. (New York: National Academy of Design; New Haven: 66. "Notable Artistic Exhibit," New York Times, September 6, 1903, p. 7, and Yale University Press, 20or), app. A, p. 213. "Paintings at Lyme," Hartford Daily Courant, September 4, 1903; so. Cather mentions ,Cos Cob in The Song of the Lark (Boston: Houghton archives, Florence Griswold Museum. Mifflin, 1915 and 1943), p. 537. Lincoln Steffens, "Cos Cob: An Art 67. Anthony H. Euwer, "Old Lyme, Connecticut: The American Barbizon," Colony," chap. n in The Autobiography of Lincoln Sttffens, 2 vols. (1931; Sound Breeze, April 2, 1904, quoted in Andersen, "Art Colony at Old New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1958), val. 2, pp. 436- Lyme," p. 123. The article originally appeared in the Pittsbut:gh Index. I 42. For more writers and performing artists who were members of the am grateful to Jeffrey W. Andersen for this information. Cos Cob art colony, see Larkin, Cos Cob Art Colony, app. B, pp. 218-21. 68. Childe Hassam, Appledore, August 16 and 21, 1906, to Florence Griswold, 51. "Art School at Cos Cob," p. 56. Old Lyme, archives, Florence Griswold Museum. Hassam's appearance in 52. Steffens, Autobiography, val. 2, pp. 436-37. Old Lyme exhibitions between 1903 and 1912 are noted in the exhibition 53. Constant Holley MacRae, Cos Cob, October 20, 1902, to Josephine chronology in this publication. Holley, Rock, Mass., Holley MacRae Family Papers 69. Hassam is known to have visited Old Lyme in 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, and 54. MacRae, October 28, 1902, to Holley. 1909. He may also have stayed there in 1907 (the only evidence for this is 55. "A Small Art Colony," Commercia/Advertiser (New York), July 22, 1899, the date II)07 inscribed on the door panel in the Griswold House dining p. 1, clipping in Holley/MacRae Family Papers. room he painted with Henry Rankin Poore and Walter Griffin [seep. 158]) 56. The term "the Cos Cob Clapboard School" was published for the first and in 1908, when his paintings were shown in Old Lyme. The chronolo time in Hassam 1928, p. 28. It is repeated in Adams 1938, p. 93. gies in Hiesinger 1994, Adelson, Cantor, and Gerdts 1999, and this publi 57. "The Oldest House in Town," Greenwich Graphic, January 29,1898, p. r. cation also place him in Old Lyme in September 1915. That stay seems not 58. Typescript (probably by Dorothy Weir Young) of notes from an undated to have resulted in significant work, however. An etching, The Ox-Cart interview with Elmer and Constant Holley MacRae, Dorothy Weir Young (C17), dated 1915, was based on a drawing made at Old Lyme, possibly research papers, tub 3, "Holley Farm" folder, archives, Weir Farm years earlier. National Historic Site, Wilton, Connecticut. 70. Lillian Baynes Griffin, "Art Colony at Old Lyme Expands," Hartford 59. See Fourth Exhibition Oil Paintings by Contemporary Artists, exh. cat. Courant, ca. July 4, 1907, archives, Florence Griswold Museum. Lillian (Washingtion, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery ofArt, December 17, 1912-January 26, Baynes Griffin was married to painter Walter Griffin, Hassam's friend. 1913 ), no. 136, The Bowl of Gold Fishj no. 165, The New York Window. For 71. Childe Hassam, New York, April 29, 1905, to Florence Griswold, Old the New York Window series, see H. Barbara Weinberg, "Hassam in New Lyme, archives, Florence Griswold Museum. York, 1897-1919," in this publication, pp. 2u-16. For a more extensive 72. Childe Hassam, Old Lyme, July 3, 1905, to J. Alden Weir, probably comparison of the New York and Cos Cob images of women, see "Familiar Branchville, archives, Florence Griswold Museum; also available in Hassam Faces: Images of Women and Children," chap. 4 of Larkin, Cos Cob Papers, reel NAA2, frame 72. Art Colony. 73. Stuart A. Reeve, Laurie Bradt, Harold Juli, and Robert Gradie, "The 6o. The room served various purposes. During the art colony's heyday it was Archaeology of the Lyme Art Colony, Florence Griswold Museum, Old one of the best bedrooms. Hassam and his wife, Maud, often stayed there. Lyme, Connecticut," Connecticut College Archaeology Laboratory Report, 6r. For more on Nutting, see Thomas Andrew Denenberg, Wallace Nutting no. II (April2ooo ), pp. 128-68. I am grateful to Jeffrey W. Andersen and and the Invention ofOldAmerica, exh. cat. (Hartford, Conn.: Wadsworth Laurie Bradt for providing me with a copy of the report and sharing their Athenaeum Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003). insights about the studios. The report revises earlier ideas about the location 62. For the Tonalists in the art colony, see Jeffrey W. Andersen and Barbara of Hassam's studio. In the schematic map on p. 126 of Spencer, Larkin, J. MacAdam, Old Lyme: The American Barbizon, exh. cat. (Old Lyme, and Andersen, Connecticut and American Impressionism, the site designated Conn.: Lyme Historical Society, Florence Griswold Museum, 1982). For as "Small Studio (known as 'Hassam's Studio')" is now understood to the Impressionists who came later to Old Lyme, see Jeffrey W. Andersen, have been clear of buildings. "The Art Colony at Old Lyme," in Harold Spencer, Susan G. Larkin, and 74. In addition to the bottles, a full complement of artists' materials (some in Jeffrey W. Andersen, Connecticut and American Impressionism, exh. cat. fragments) was discovered at the site: a paint box, paint tubes and bottles, (Storrs, Conn.: William Benton Museum of Art, 1980 ), pp. rr4-37. Jeffrey brushes, palettes, varnish bottles, a palette lmife, an easel, and painted W. Andersen's essay "A Season in Lyme: Life among the Artists," in En fabric, possibly the remains of a discarded painting. Others who used the Plein Air: The Art Colonies at East Hampton and Old Lyme, I880-II)30, studio when Hassam was not in residence include Matilda Browne, Louis exh. cat. (Old Lyme: Florence Griswold Museum; East Hampton: Guild Paul Dessar, Allen B. Talcott, and Mrs. Woodrow VVilson. Hall Museum, 1989 ), pp. 25-32, covers both Tonalists and Impressionists. 75. For more on this theme, see Bruce Weber, The Apple of America: The 63. Arthur Heming, Miss Florence and the Artists of Old Lyme (Essex, Conn.: Apple in Il)th Century American Art, exh. cat. (New York: Berry-Hill Pequot Press, 1971), p. 19. The commissions she earned supplemented her Galleries, 1993). modest income. 76. Wallace Nutting, Connecticut Beautiful (Framingham, Mass.: Old 64. Thomas D. Murphy, New England Highways and Byways from a Motorcarj America Co., 1923). Sunrise Highways (Boston: L. C. Page and Company, 1924 ), p. 279. I am 77. See Denenberg, Wallace Nutting and Invention ofOld America, pp. 74-77. grateful to Jeffrey W. Andersen for bringing this quotation to my attention. 78. Adams stated that she was the model in a visit of 1965 and a phone call 65. "The Lyme Art Show," Hartford Daily Courant, September 2, 1902, of 1968 to the National Collection afFine Arts, Washington, D.C. (now archives, Florence Griswold Museum. The article ran the following day in the Smithsonian American Art Museum). According to Adams, the the New London Day. painting was executed in Florence Griswold's garden in September 1906. .