"A PRETTY FINE OLD TOWN ": Childe Hassam in Old Lyme
June 5 through September 26, 2004
Krieble Gallery
"A Pretty Fine Old Town" is one of three simultaneous exhibitions focused on Childe Hassam to be held at the same time the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is showing their major Hassam retrospective. The three venues, the Florence Griswold Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum, and the Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich at Bush-Holley Historic Site (Cos Cob), look at different aspects of Hassam's career. Other exhibitions on Hassam can be found at Lyman Allyn Art Museum and Saint Joseph College.
Support for this exhibition has been received from Xerox and from the Indian Point Foundation. A full range of educational programming will accompany this special exhibition, highlighted by performances in July of an original one-act play, Hassam in the Garden.
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Hassam outside his studio near
Miss Florence's garden |
On the Lieutenant River
(Miss Florence is second from left) |
On the front porch of Miss Florence's |
Finding Inspiration in Old Lyme
When Hassam first visited Old Lyme in that summer of 1903 he wrote to his artist friend J. Alden Weir in Branchville, Connecticut, "We are up here in another old corner of Connecticut, and it is very much like your country. There are some very large oaks and chestnuts and many fine hedges. Lyme, or Old Lyme as it is usually called, is at the mouth of the Connecticut River and it really is a pretty fine old town." He stayed at Florence Griswold’s boarding house, home of the Lyme Art Colony, and now the Florence Griswold Museum. Hassam’s charm and easy manner made him a favorite of "Miss Florence," as Griswold was affectionately known. During his frequent trips to Old Lyme over the next several years Hassam was given the best studio on the property, next to the garden overlooking the Lieutenant River. A painting of his studio by Harry Hoffman is in the exhibition.
Hassam’s varied work in Old Lyme reveals an artist who experimented endlessly. In another letter to Weir that first summer, Hassam wrote, "I just did two landscapes at Lyme and started and nearly finished two figure things to be finished in the studio. One a figure at an open window and the other a nude. I did work steadily there and I like the place." This exhibition of 22 paintings and works on paper, historic photos, and archival material portrays the breadth of Hassam’s Old Lyme work and places it in the context of the rest of his long and prolific career.
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June, 1905
American Academy of Arts and Letters |
Dragon Cloud, Old Lyme, 1903
New Britain Museum of American Art |
A Familiar Tune, c.1880s
Florence Griswold Museum |
Unveiling a Hidden Masterpiece
Hassam was staying at the Florence Griswold House in 1905 when he began to work on the monumental painting June, a highlight of the exhibition. This mural-size (7’ x 7’) painting portrays three nudes among the mountain laurel bushes on the banks of the Lieutenant River. It is on loan from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York and has rarely been on public view in nearly 90 years, when an entire gallery was devoted to it at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Although largely forgotten today, June was a celebrated painting during Hassam’s career, receiving two awards in national exhibitions. The artist himself unabashedly called it "a masterpiece." Art historian Adeline Adams stated that "No Frenchman ever caught the spirit of June as shown in Hassam’s trio of nude figures against a background of mountain laurel." In its imposing size and subject matter, June is emblematic of Hassam’s increasing interest in representing the outdoor nude, often in verdant Arcadian settings. The loan and conservation of this painting were made possible by a grant from the Museum Loan Network.
From the justifiably famous series on the Old Lyme Congregational Church to his figure paintings and interiors, Hassam’s nostalgic images made icons out of many New England scenes. "It’s as if these paintings are coming home," notes Florence Griswold Museum curator Amy Ellis. "Visitors to Old Lyme can see these paintings in the very setting they were created." Or see how time has changed the New England landscape, as with the example of Bridge over the Lieutenant River. The 1905 painting of the picturesque Bow Bridge – a favorite subject of Hassam’s and the other Lyme Art Colony painters – stands in stark contrast to Interstate 95, which now passes over the river in its stead.
"Just the Place for High Thinking and Low Living"
An added feature during the exhibition is a tour of the Florence Griswold House, which, according to Hassam, was "just the place for high thinking and low living." Guides will tell engaging stories of Hassam’s bohemian summers with Miss Florence and the other artists of the Lyme Art Colony. The time he hurled an orange through one of the windows of the dining room;his impromptu parades down the main street of town, and evenings spent taking supper with "the Hot Air Club," are all brought to life as visitors tour the rooms where he lived and worked. Like many leading artists of the Colony, Hassam left his mark on the doors and walls of the Griswold House. He contributed three paintings to this unique ensemble, including a 1903 panel of nude bathers by the Lieutenant River.
 June, 1905
Oil on canvas; 84 x 84 in.
American Academy of Arts and Letters
All About June
The focus of this exhibition is June, which Hassam completed in 1905. Three nudes are set against a backdrop of mountain laurel, Connecticut’s State Flower and a signature subject for the Old Lyme painters. Writing to J. Alden Weir from Old Lyme on July 3, 1905, Hassam noted, "The laurel has been superb. I wish you could have seen it. It did not last long – too much wind and rain."
Undoubtedly Hassam conceived of the composition for June in Old Lyme, and probably executed the studies here, but it is more likely that he worked on the final canvas in his New York City studio. There he would have had more space, which would have been necessary for such a large-scale work.
 Study for June
Early Morning, Old Lyme, 1905
Oil on canvas; 16.2 x 12 .3 in
George J. Turak
Turak Gallery of American Art, Philadelphia, PA
The scale of this painting is significant but remains largely unexplained. Measuring 7 by 7 feet, it compares with other mural-size canvases Hassam painted on commission for display in homes. The documentation on this work reveals no evidence of commission, however. Instead, as one scholar has suggested, Hassam may have conceived of this painting as signaling a shift in emphasis in his art, from landscapes and scenes of modern life to classical themes. Its large size would have made it prominent in a gallery space. The painting was exhibited in 1905 and 1906, winning a third prize at the international exhibition held at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh and securing the Carnegie prize of $500 at the exhibition of the Society of American Artists in New York.
Although Hassam himself called June a masterpiece, the painting remained in his New York studio until after his death, when his estate went to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The painting has remained at the Academy since that time.
The conservation and two-year loan of Hassam’s June to the Florence Griswold Museum was made possible by the Museum Loan Network – a program funded and initiated by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, and administered by MIT’s Office of the Arts.
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