ten years he conducted an antique class for women at Cooper Union. He also did illustrations for books and magazines like Scribner's and Century. Whenever possible, he did paint, although in the early I 89os, his work seems to have been mainly portraiture. Perhaps as a result of his friendship with artists like CHILDE HASSAM, J. ALDEN WEIR, and ROBERT REID, MetcalfSOOn came under the influence of impressionism. Landscapes with broken brushwork, bright colors, and unconventional compositions characterize his work beginning about I895· In 1897 he became a founding member of the Ten American Painters, a group consisting largely of impressionist artists. He also undertook murals, such as the frieze ofJustice in the Appellate Court Building in New York in I898 and I899· In I 903, Metcalf stopped teaching and retreated to his parents' farm in Maine, where he devoted himself to landscape painting. The artist considered this juncture in his career his "Renaissance." Financial considerations, however, soon forced him to resume teaching again, this time at the Rhode Island School of Design. After a successful exhibition at the St. Botolph Club in Boston in 1906, however, his future was more secure. In the early I 90os, Metcalf spent his summers at the popular artists' colony in Old Lyme, Connecticut. There he painted landscapes like May Night, I9o6 (Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), which shows the residence of Florence Griswold, the friend and patron of many artists. In New York he maintained a studio in the Hotel des Artistes and was an active member of the Century Association. After 1910, his work received many honors and awards and was purchased by such noted collectors as Charles Lang Freer. Metcalf declined member­ ship in the National Academy of Design, although he did exhibit his work there as early as I889. In 1924, however, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Up until the time of his death, Metcalf continued to paint, and his mature work of the 1920s, ambitious in scale and powerful in design, is perhaps his best.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: "Book Illustrators, III: Willard L. Metcalf," Book buyer I I [April I 894], pp. 120- 123. Based on an interview with the artist, the article discusses his career as an illustrator II Henry Milford Steele, "The Requirements of Black and White (with original illustrations by Willard L. Metcalf)," Monthly Illustrator 3 (Jan.-March 1895), pp. 93-96 II Catherine Beach Ely, "Willard L. Metcalf," Art in America 13 (Oct. 1925), pp. 332-336 /I Bernard Teevan, "A Painter's Renaissance," International Studio 82 (Oct. I925), pp. 2-1 I II Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Mass., Willard Leroy Metcalf: A Retrospective ( I976), exhib. cat. by Francis Murphy, biographical essay by Elizabeth de Veer. An illustrated catalogue for a traveling exhibition that included the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, N.Y.; Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, N.H.; and the Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tenn.

Hillside Pastures dry, broken brushstrokes that often allow the bare canvas to show through. Painted in 1922, only three years before the For an exhibition in I925, one writer noted artist's death, this autumnal landscape depicts that the constant theme in Metcalf's paintings the hilly farmland around Springfield, Vermont. "is the robust landscape ofN ew England divested Not as panoramic nor quite as powerful as some of its rigors." of the landscapes Metcalf painted in the 1920s, this work contains, however, strong contrasts of For Mr. Metcalf does not deal in asperities. He was born to please. These rugged hills, to which he is native, light and shadow that lend strength to the com­ these woods and stubborn fields and stony brooks position. A late example of the artist's work in the reveal, under his hand, no more of their primitive impressionist mode, it is brightly colored, with harshness. He loves . . . these homely hills, and he sings Willard Metcalf