Questroyal 2009

Willard Leroy Metcalf ( 1858 – 1925 ) Plate 29 On the Suffolk Coast , 1885 Oil on canvas 10 11 / 16 x 18 1 / 8 inches Signed and dated lower right: W. L. METCALF. 1885 . ; inscribed on verso: Painted byWillard in Suffolk, England near the fishing village of Lowestoft in the summer of one of the late eighties, overlooking the North Sea. provenance The artist Hazelton family, acquired from the above Estate of Robert C. Hazelton Sale, Christie’s, NewYork, March 16, 1990 , lot 198 Private collection, acquired from the above exhibited St. Botolph Club, Boston, March–April 1889 Rowland’s Gallery, Boston, 1889 Fondation de l’Hermitage, Lausanne, Switzerland, L’Impressionisme Américain 1880 – 1915 , June–October, 2002 note This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work by BruceW. Chambers, William H. Gerdts, and Ira Spanierman. Every stroke of [Metcalf ’s] brush pulses with love and respect for nature that is little short of veneration…. Every inch of canvas vibrates…with light and air and life....Their appeal is not confined to those who are supposed to be connoisseurs and critics of art, but is made to every one who knows and loves nature. ada rainey, art critic of TheWashington Post, 1925 1 Master of Impressionism Willard Metcalf studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, before moving to Europe in 1883 to enroll at the Académie Julian in Paris, the training ground of many of the nineteenth century’s most rebellious modern artists. During his five-year European sojourn, Metcalf traveled throughout France and England, visiting noted artistic communities such as Pont-Aven, Brittany, and Grez-sur-Loing, south of Paris. Deeply influenced by French impressionism, he is believed to be one of the first American artists to visit Claude Monet in his famed Giverny retreat in 1885 . On the Suffolk Coast , painted that same year, exhibits the close attention to the effects of light and quick brushstrokes that characterized the plein air techniques of impressionist masters such as Monet and Auguste Renoir. Upon Metcalf’s return to America, he further developed these methods, employing them in his views of the NewEngland countryside. These paintings, like his European works, remain beloved for their freshness and sincerity. — imh Metcalf’s paintings may be seen at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Art Institute of Chicago. 1 Aida (sic) Rainey, “Metcalf Paintings in the Corcoran Provide Notable Art Exhibition,” TheWashington Post , January 11, 1925 . 2 Elizabeth de Veer in Francis Murphy, Willard Leroy Metcalf, A Retrospective (Spring- field, Mass.: Museum of Fine Arts, 1976 ), p. xix. He was now acclaimed ‘the poet laureate’ of the New England hills. There were honors and more honors, purchases and more purchases. . . . Throughout the country there were few museums that did not respond to the special quality of his canvases by buying at least one of them. elizabeth de veer, independent scholar, 1976 2