Connecticut art lovers never have a shortage of exhibits of impressionist art, this being the home of the legendary turn-of-the-20th-century art colonies in Old Lyme, Greenwich and a few smaller enclaves. The new exhibit at the Springfield Museums has its share of Connecticut Impressionism, but it stands out for its emphasis on colonies all over the country.
Pennsylvania colonies get huge play in “American Impressionism: The Lure Of The Artists’ Colony,” which isn’t surprising, since the show originated at the Reading (Pa.) Public Museum. The most memorable pieces, however, come from artists working much farther west, in California and New Mexico. The almost blinding sunlight and desert-dwelling Native American models set these works far apart from their northeastern artist brethren.
Walter Ufer’s “Pab Shlee,” painted in Taos, N.M., shows a beautiful young Indian woman standing among the lush plants of that region. Two works by Eanger Irving Couse, “The Water Course” and “Indian Hunter,” also from the Taos colony, depict Native American men in their natural world.
Albert Lorey Groll, another Taos painter, ventured across state lines to create “The Painted Desert, Arizona.” His mastery of the shifting colors of the sand and the sky led admiring Native Americans to nickname him “Chief Bald Head Eagle Eye.”
“The Lotus Pool El Encanto, Santa Barbara,” a 1921-22 work by Colin Campbell Cooper, and “Montecito, California,” a 1903 painting by Richard Summer Merryman, look at the beauty of man-made landscaped grounds, unlike most northeastern impressionists, whose nature scenes are focus on wild, unspoiled beauty.
John LaFarge, who is best known as a glassworker, wanders even farther afield, and created the exhibit’s lone image of Japan, “Japanese Peasant,” an 1886 work showing a young woman leading a horse.
Almost as sunny as Montecito is “Market Day,” a lively 1915 view of the main street in Provincetown, Mass., painted by Nancy Maybin Ferguson of the colony in that Cape Cod town, and “Summer Breezes,” a 1910-20 image of a woman standing in a field, by Robert Lewis Reid of the Cos Cob colony.
The show, which has been traveling from its Pennsylvania home base for nine years, features 111 paintings and works on paper. Artists include Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson, Julian Alden Weir, John Twachtman, Chauncey Ryder, Frank W. Benson, William Paxton, Soren Emil Carlsen, Abbott Thayer, Guy Wiggins, Daniel Garber and Edward Redfield, as well as Lyme colony founder Henry Ward Ranger, who created the dramatic “Marine: Green and Gold,” a 1915 seascape whose diagonally painted sky looms dramatically over the ocean.
A special feature in the Springfield show are several works owned by Michele and Donald D’Amour of Somers, the Big Y moguls for whom the Springfield Museums’ art space is named.
“Provincetown Artist Colony: Woodblock Prints” is a companion exhibit, on view through Jan. 10, featuring work by, among others, Blanche Lazzell, Elizabeth Norton and Margaret Jordan Patterson.
‘AMERICAN IMPRESSIONISM: THE LURE OF THE ARTISTS’ COLONY’ will be at Springfield Museums, 21 Edwards St.,. in Springfield, Mass., until Oct. 25. springfieldmuseums.org.
