Thinking
About Spring and Willard Metcalf’s New
England Afternoon
Post
by: Jennifer Chapman Smith
Collections and Exhibitions Manager
With
the weather forecast calling for snow, we thought it might be nice to share a
beautiful summery painting with you to get you through the cold days ahead.
Willard
Metcalf’s New England Afternoon, ca.1909,
was given to the WCMFA in 1931 by museum founders, William and Anna Singer, and
has been a favorite of visitors since that time. William Singer, who was a
painter himself, occasionally joined Metcalf on painting excursions in Old
Lyme, Connecticut. Metcalf even visited the Singers when they lived in Norway
and gifted them several paintings, this one among them.
Dr.
Elizabeth Johns writes in One Hundred
Stories: Highlights from the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts of the
painting:
“New England Afternoon radiated the
bright yellows and greens of summer. A dark, sinuous creak leads the viewer’s
eye into the landscape through a foreground dotted with livestock. Blue-tinged
mountains in the far distance, a church steeple in the background, and a sky
filled with scudding clouds = typical characteristics of New England – give the
scene its sweeping scale. Metcalf’s high point of view and nearly square canvas
(popular at the time) create a deep space, which the delicate, short,
brushstrokes fill with a pleasant softness”
This
painting is not currently on view but is scheduled to be included in the
re-installation of the Singer Memorial Gallery, happening later this year.
We
hope this painting from the WCMFA collection will fill you with the warmth of
summer and you can remember the lovely greens and yellows as you shovel snow.