A July Afternoon, Lyme,CT, 1906
Oil on mahogany panel, 12 1/2 x 16 1/8”
Signed and dated lower left
Simmons was one of The Ten, a group of painters who seceded from the Society of American Artists in 1898 in order to exhibit their work more effectively. The group is linked to Impressionism because Hassam, Twachtman, Weir, and Metcalf were founders. At the time, however, Simmons was a mural painter.
In 1906, Simmons was briefly at Old Lyme. He announced a hiatus from painting in 1912 in order to think how to change his work, which he considered "too literal and too full of detail." It appears that a half dozen years earlier, in Old Lyme, he was already addressing these issues.