The American Artist in Connecticut:
The Legacy of the Hartford Steam Boiler Collection

Introduction
Portraiture
Discovering the Connecticut Landscape
Still Life & Genre
Connecticut & American Impressionism
The Cos Cob Art Colony
Mystic, Silvermine, & Beyond
The Art Colony at Old Lyme

About The Hartford Steam Boiler Collection

Home to Florence Griswold Museum

The Art Colony at Old Lyme : 2

The artists were charmed by the New England character of the town’s weathered houses, old gristmills, and white-spired church, and its setting of laurel groves, rocky ledges, wooded uplands, and tidal estuaries. The center of the colony was the Late Georgian mansion (Florence Griswold House) where Miss Florence joyfully provided room and board. The 41 panels that 30 grateful artists painted on her dining room walls are preserved today. Artists often became residents of Old Lyme, restoring Colonial houses and planting gardens. As early as 1902, the colonists inaugurated a “summer annual,” the first such exhibition in America. In 1914 the Lyme Art Association was formed and in 1921 it opened its own gallery, designed by prominent architect Charles Platt. Old Lyme exhibitions were reviewed nationwide.

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