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The Artist's Easel
February 7 - March 16, 2014
On February 7,
2014 the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut opened two exhibitions
that focus on artist materials, studio practices, and
influences. The Artist's Easel was inspired
by the Museum's unique collection of historic easels, paint boxes, palettes,
and other art supplies. The exhibition features nearly a dozen easels as
well as work by the artists associated with them, including Frank Vincent
DuMond, Ivan Olinsky, William Chadwick, Oscar Fehrer, and Will Howe Foote. Lyme
Artists Abroad, on view through June 1, 2014, offers selections
from the Museum's permanent collection that demonstrate the range of subjects,
scales, compositions, and techniques Lyme artists used when they journeyed
abroad. These artists traveled around the world capturing the beautiful,
the exotic, and the unknown. They returned to Connecticut with a new sensibility
reflecting the diverse people, places, and objects encountered. (right:
gallery photo #1, The Artist's Easel. Photo by Tammi Glynn, Florence
Griswold Museum)
In 2013, the Florence Griswold Museum was given the easel
of artist Frank Vincent DuMond, which stood for many years in his studio
adjacent to his home in Lyme. This monumental piece incorporates not only
a pivoting support for paintings, but an adjustable drafting table and storage
drawers. A versatile artist who painted landscapes, portraits, and murals,
DuMond made use of all the features of this complex design in executing
works such as the studies for the murals of pioneers departing from the
East and arriving in California, which he prepared for the 1915 Panama-Pacific
Exposition. DuMond's easel joined the Museum's vast collection of historic
artist materials, which includes everything from simple folding easels to
specialized easels developed from the mid nineteenth century onward to suit
the needs of professional and amateur artists. These handmaids of creativity
were not only vital tools, but furnishings for the often elaborate studio
spaces where the artists both made and exhibited art work for sale in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Works by Frank Vincent DuMond, Ivan Olinsky, William Chadwick,
Oscar Fehrer, and Will Howe Foote, among others, will be displayed on the
easels associated with the artists. Views by Childe Hassam and Robert Vonnoh
of artists at work in their studios will shed light on the process and means
through which artists create their finished pieces. Vonnoh's painting incorporates
not only a self portrait, but a portrait of his wife, the sculptor Bessie
Potter Vonnoh, at work with her clay. Other pictures by Charles Platt and
Reynolds Beal contemplate the studios themselves as often eclectic working
spaces. The exhibition will also feature easels and gear for outdoor painting,
including the easel, paintbox, and palette of Thomas Cole-whose Hudson River
School landscapes relied on outdoor sketches. Cole even embellished his
paintbox with a landscape scene. This equipment will be on display from
the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York. In addition,
the exhibition will serve as a debut for Matilda Browne's magnificent Peonies,
ca. 1907, completed in oil on panel en plein air. Newly acquired
by the Florence Griswold Museum, Browne's painting of a woman in the Old
Lyme garden of Katharine Ludington, just down the street from Florence Griswold's
boardinghouse, reflects the dazzling impression of light and color an artist
could capture by setting up an easel outside, directly in front of the subject.
The Artist's Easel is on view February 7 through March 16, 2014. (left:
gallery photo #2, The Artist's Easel. Photo by Tammi Glynn, Florence
Griswold Museum)
Lyme Artists Abroad will
be on view February 7 through June 1, 
2014. The
exhibition demonstrates how the artists who traveled to Old Lyme during
the early twentieth-century appreciated and sought artistic and cultural
experiences from around the world. As early as their student years, several
colony members traveled to Europe, where they devoured the landscapes of
France, Italy, Holland, and England, enrolled in rigorous academic programs,
and obtained their first taste of art colony life. Charles H. Davis was
born in rural Massachusetts and studied at the School of the Museum of Fine
Arts in Boston before a patron funded his travel to France in 1880. He immersed
himself in French life for nine years, exhibited successfully in Paris,
and married a Frenchwoman. Scenes like A Quiet Corner (1882)
demonstrate how Davis was among the many American artists to be influenced
by the mid-ninetieth century French Realist painters who explored everyday
landscapes, scenes, and characters in their work. (right: Matilda
Browne, Peonies, ca. 1907. Oil on wood, 11 x 14 inches. Florence
Griswold Museum)
Back home, many artists wanted to replicate what they experienced
in Europe. They left their city studios to establish art colonies in places
like Old Lyme where they found dense gatherings of artists in pleasant settings.
William Chadwick, Clark Voorhees, Harry Hoffman and Will Howe, Edmund Greacen,
and Reynolds Beal were part of a small circle of Lyme painters who spent
winters in Bermuda. Voorhees is an example of how artists who flourished
with the camaraderie and collegial atmosphere of the Lyme Art Colony began
spending winters in Bermuda so that they could continue to paint outside en
plein air during the cold months. Just as he did in Old Lyme, Voorhees
found inspiration in the characteristic landscapes, seascapes, and architecture
of Bermuda. Many of his Caribbean pictures came to Old Lyme for exhibitions.
In the 1930s, Voorhees helped to establish annual exhibitions for the painters
working in Bermuda. Capturing the delicate tonal variations of a colorful
landscape muted by delicate moonlight, Landscape by Moonlight-Bermuda (after
1919) owes much to the style Voorhees developed in Connecticut.
Expeditions to places as far-flung as the Zuni pueblo,
the hills of Italy, and the warm waters of the Caribbean demonstrate artists'
perpetual quest for intriguing subject matter and varied landscapes to contrast
with the familiar pastures and woods of Connecticut. Lyme Artists
Abroad brings together paintings, academic drawings, and sketchbooks
that capture the sights, insights, and experiences Lyme artists gathered
abroad, enriching their work at home.
Wall text panels from the exhibition The Artist's
Easel
- The Artist's Easel
-
- Although easels have existed in some form or another
for millennia, the prevalence of painting on canvas or panel after the
Middle Ages gave rise to the easel as an essential tool for artists who
needed a support for their work. This exhibition focuses attention on easels,
workhorses of the studio whose very name is thought to have come from the
sixteenth-century Dutch word for donkey ("ezel"), animals known
for carrying loads. Despite their indispensable status, easels have received
little attention -- silent servants fulfilling a supporting role. Indeed,
little is known about their makers, and few, if any are labeled or marked.
-
- By the mid nineteenth century, artists' easels took several
forms. Large wooden frames with pegs on the legs, like that used by the
artist Thomas Cole, provided support and some adjustability, and give us
a glimpse of the sort of easel artists used from the seventeenth century
onward. The emergence of art as a profession in the second half of the
nineteenth century resulted in the commercial production of specialized
equipment for artists painting both inside and out: easels that could be
cranked up and down, tilted forward, or even folded for portability depending
on an artist's needs. For the most part, the easels in this exhibition
date from this era, when they were used by the Impressionist painters associated
with the Lyme Art Colony.
-
- The versatile equipment available to artists in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reflects the diversity of artistic
practice during that era, when artists might be called upon to paint anything
from large murals to small outdoor studies. The studio easel of Lyme Art
Colony painter and teacher Frank Vincent DuMond, a recent addition to the
Museum's unique collection of artists' tools and materials, reflects this
range by providing surfaces and supports for both drawings and paintings.
DuMond's easel shares these galleries with easels of other American artists
and selected paintings made on them. Together, these tools and paintings
give us a glimpse inside the studio and transport us back to the moment
of artistic creation, when brush touched canvas to produce a work of art.
-
-
- Artists' Studios
-
- From humble shacks to elaborate showplaces, studios evolved
over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to meet
the needs of artists as an increasingly professionalized group. Once typically
workspaces tucked away in garrets with minimal furnishings that seldom
extended beyond easels, palettes, and brushes, studios became venues for
artists to display and market their work after the mid nineteenth century.
In New York, the Tenth Street Studios opened in 1858 as the first example
of these dedicated spaces. Artists could both live and work in the building,
as well as host receptions and exhibitions. Painter William Merritt Chase
occupied the most legendary of these studios (pictured in this section),
stocked with artworks, costumes, props, and furniture from around the world
that attested to his cosmopolitan identity, not simply his artistic abilities.
-
- The permanence and increasingly elaborate furnishings
of studios prompted the embrace of a new type of easel imported from Europe.
Whereas artists used narrower A-frame academy easels, adjustable with a
screw, before the mid-nineteenth century, the late nineteenth century saw
the adoption of the so-called "French" studio easel. Made of
heavy walnut or mahogany, these sturdy H-form rectangular easels could
be moved on casters, smoothly raised and lowered with a crank, and tilted
forward. While a simple pine academy or basic studio easel might cost a
few dollars, French studio easels were advertised at $50 by art suppliers
F.W. Devoe & C.T. Raynolds in 1892.
-
- While artists sometimes painted pictures of their studios,
such as the views by Emil Carlsen or Charles Platt, the rooms more often
appear in portraits. Oscar Fehrer's Reflecting and Reflections depicts
a model in the studio, with a glimpse of the easel to remind us that this
is an artist's composition. Artists' self portraits, such as Robert Vonnoh's
double portrait of himself and his wife, sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh,
most frequently include the easels on which the very canvases we see were
placed.
-
-
- Painting En Plein Air
-
- Just as more formal studios encouraged the adoption of
specialized and increasingly elaborate easels in the mid nineteenth century,
the invention of the collapsible metal paint tube in the early 1840s facilitated
a growing interest in painting outdoors, and with that another major expansion
of artists' supplies. Collapsible easels, portable paintboxes and palettes,
folding stools, and small panels were developed for professionals but also
for a burgeoning audience of amateurs who followed landscape painters outdoors
to paint.
-
- The supplies and paintings in this section reflect the
ways in which painting practices and supplies were adapted for the outdoors.
Simplified, portable, collapsible easels with metal-tipped legs could be
set up on uneven ground, then folded and carried for easy transport. Some
were simple tripods and others featured attached paintboxes for storing
pigments and brushes. Wood panels, such as that used for Matilda Browne's
Peonies held up to the rigors of plein-air work. Art supply
makers touted this outdoor painting equipment as compact, lightweight,
but sturdy, the ideal blend of features needed for painting under varying
weather conditions.
-
-
- Thomas Cole's Art Supplies
-
- The art supplies in this section of the exhibition come
from the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York, where
they normally furnish the studio of Hudson River School founder Thomas
Cole. The British-born Cole popularized landscape painting in America in
the second quarter of the nineteenth century and his supplies represent
a transition away from art as something practiced exclusively in the studio
to an outdoor pursuit requiring smaller, portable equipment. The growing
interest in landscape, as opposed to history painting or portraiture, drove
the shift during this period. Cole's massive easel provided the ideal support
for large exhibition-size oils of the sort for which the Hudson River School
members became well known. One such example is Cole's Course of Empire
series, for which the small canvas Study for A Wild Scene, included
here, is a preparatory version. The sizeable landscapes for which the Hudson
River School was known began with oil sketches made outdoors, using paintboxes
like the one from Cole's studio. Two of Cole's palettes also appear here,
the oval one padded for comfort during long hours of use.
-
-
- The Easels of the Lyme Art Colony
-
- The easels in this gallery belonged to various members
of the Lyme Art Colony. They are displayed here along with works by the
artists who used them in the studios they set up in homes they purchased
in town. Unlike the folding easels for plein-air work in the other gallery,
the sturdy fixed easels shown here occupied permanent studios. One of those
studios, that of William Chadwick, is located on the Museum grounds. Since
it is closed for the winter, Chadwick's easel and a selection of his works
have been included here.
-
- Although all the easels in this exhibition share certain
traits, they also exhibit the range of features artists could choose from
to customize easels that would work best for them. Some designs for easels,
like the double-sided easel of portraitist Abram Poole, allowed an artist
to work on two paintings at once. Others feature casters as well as a screw
to level them on an uneven floor. Frank Vincent DuMond's impressive easel
incorporates not only a support for paintings, but also a tilting table
for drawings and watercolors, and drawers for storing supplies. Until 2013,
his easel still resided in the artists' home on Grassy Hill Road, where
it was used by subsequent generations of artists including Harold Goodwin,
Barbara E. Goodwin, and Michael Harvey.
Object labels from the exhibition The Artist's Easel
-
- Will Howe Foote (1874-1965)
- Studio Interior
- Watercolor and pencil on paper
- Florence Griswold Museum, Anonymous Gift
- 1954.14
-
- While some artists' studios occupied freestanding buildings
where conditions tended to be rustic, Will Howe Foote's atelier was inside
his house on Sill Lane in Old Lyme. This watercolor depicts his easel amid
household furnishings; indeed the easel's green fabric skirt "dresses"
it for a space occupied not only by the artist but also his family and
guests. The merging of work and domestic life was characteristic of the
Impressionists, who often chose such subjects for their paintings. The
canvas on the easel depicts another such interior of the artist's home,
Cedarfields.
-
-
- Harry Hoffman (1874-1966)
- Childe Hassam's Studio, 1909
- Oil on canvas
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of the Artist
- 1955.1
-
- Cascading spring blossoms beautify the ramshackle studio
on the bank of the Lieutenant River in which Childe Hassam painted during
his visits to Old Lyme. Studios were both places for hard work and sites
of fun and mischief. Hassam liberated a comfortable sofa from artist Henry
Rankin Poore's studio in order to enhance his own, only to have it stolen
back again. Hoffman may have chosen to depict Hassam's studio for its particular
fame; not only was it associated with the much-admired Impressionist, whose
staccato brushwork is evoked in the flowering tree, but the building even
had a name, "Bonero Terrace." Hassam based the nickname on fellow
artist Will Howe Foote's mispronunciation of "Borneo" after seeing
the "Wild Man of Borneo" in a traveling circus.
-
- Although artists stored paintings in their studios when
they were absent, other artists frequently used the spaces. The shack in
Hoffman's painting was occupied at various times by Louis Paul Dessar,
Matilda Browne, and Allen B. Talcott.
-
-
- Emil Carlsen (1853-1932)
- Behind the Artist's Studio
- Oil on canvas
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of The Hartford Steam
Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company
- 2002.1.27
-
- After painting at the studio of his friend and fellow
artist J. Alden Weir in Windham, Emil Carlsen bought his own rural home
in Falls Village, Connecticut, in 1905. Carlsen had trained as an architect
in his native Denmark. This background informed his sharp delineation of
the building's front and side planes, by far the most assertive distinction
in this otherwise tonal painting. Carlsen does not emphasize the large
windows that were a common feature of artists' studios, including his own.
Having brought his easel outdoors, he focused on the building as a spatial
volume rather than painting a portrait of his workplace.
-
-
- Everett L. Warner (1877-1963)
- Studios Behind the Florence Griswold House, ca. 1912
- Oil on canvas
- Florence Griswold Museum
- 1971.9
-
- Painted from a rear room of the boardinghouse on a chilly
winter morning, Warner's canvas depicts the outbuildings converted into
studios by Florence Griswold in order to accommodate visiting artists.
Workspace in these barns and shacks ranging down toward the Lieutenant
River rented for five dollars a month.
-
- Simple studios like these were the norm outside cities,
where they were not likely to serve as showrooms for an artist's work.
Artists visiting the Griswold boardinghouse would likely have brought their
own folding easels. It is not known whether the studios were furnished
with larger standing easels.
-
-
- Will Howe Foote (1874-1965)
- Wiggle Drawing? Oh, Fudge!
- Graphite on paper
- Florence Griswold Museum
- 1984.44
-
- During the wiggle game, members of the Lyme Art Colony
drew curves on a page. At the end, players displayed their hilarious solutions
to the problem of incorporating all the wiggles into a single composition.
Several of the drawings, including this one by Will Howe Foote showing
a painter at an easel, make artists the punch line of the joke. Throughout
their hours at the easel, artists would confront challenges and overcome
mistakes, a process of trial and error Foote gently spoofs here.
-
-
- Charles A. Platt (1861-1933)
- A Corner in an Etcher's Studio
(Interior of Studio), 1888
- Oil on canvas
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of The Hartford Steam
Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company
- 2002.1.105
-
- The architect, painter, and etcher Charles Adams Platt
painted several versions of this subject between 1885 and 1888, the year
after he returned from Paris to New York. He had first selected the subject
in 1883 with a painting featuring an easel, paint box, palette, and other
props of a student artist's atelier. Platt exhibited one of these canvases
at the Paris Salon, where his glimpse behind the scenes was awarded a place
"on the line," a location for pictures of merit.
-
- At times in his depictions of the studio, Platt portrayed
himself (or a model dressed in his work clothes) among the tools and equipment
of the etcher's trade. This particular view of the studio does not include
an etching press. It does, however, incorporate an easel at the left, on
which he might have prepared a drawing or dried an etching after it was
printed. Other etchings lean against or are pinned to the walls of the
studio. On the table at the right sits a shallow tray in which Platt would
have bathed copper etching plates in acid to set the image. The dramatic
light as well as the many bottles and jars associate an air of alchemy
with the act of creation.
-
-
-
- Reynolds Beal (1867-1951)
- Chase's Tenth Street Studio,
ca. 1894
- Oil on canvas
- Private Collection
-
- Although renowned as a teacher of plein-air painting
at his Shinnecock Summer School of Art, William Merritt Chase (1849-1916)
was also known for the elaborate studio seen in this canvas by his pupil
Reynolds Beal. Located in New York's Greenwich Village in the Tenth Street
Studio building first made famous as the workspace of Hudson River School
artists such as Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Church, Chase's atelier set
a new standard for an artist's studio through the collection of treasures
it contained -- amassed over years of travel abroad. Chase often posed
models in historic costumes amid his treasures or featured Old Master paintings,
playing up his awareness of artistic tradition and refinement. In the increasingly
commercial art world of the late nineteenth century, the artist's image,
as embodied through his studio, became an important marketing tool.
-
-
- Childe Hassam (1859-1935)
- Portrait: Charles Grafly,
1918
- Lithograph
- Private Collection
-
- Hassam's portrait of the sculptor Charles Grafly (1862-1929)
gives a sense of the equipment of the sculptor's studio. The modeling stand,
a heavy wooden tripod of sorts that served as the sculptor's "easel,"
raised the work in process to nearly chest height so the artist could stand
and face his model. In this lithograph, we see Grafly at work on a bust
of Hassam, which is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of
Art.
-
-
- Unidentified maker
- Modeling Table
- Wood
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of Fenton L.B. Brown
- 2004.14
-
- This table for modeling a sculpture once belonged to
the Lyme Art Colony painter Edward Rook. Rook is not known to have used
it for assembling sculptures, but by the later nineteenth century, it was
not uncommon for artists' studio implements to be used as decorative furnishings.
-
-
- Oscar Fehrer (1872-1958)
- Reflecting and Reflections,
1918
- Oil on canvas
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of Miss Catherine Fehrer
and Miss Elizabeth Fehrer
- 1993.19.15
-
- Painted the year that Oscar Fehrer joined other artists
as a resident of Lyme's Pleasant Valley, this canvas operates on several
levels. The model's historic costume and the lavish drapery suggest an
earlier era; but lest we mistake this for a historical depiction, Fehrer
inserts his easel -- a symbol of the studio -- in the background to let
us know he has composed the scene. The easel is visible in a large mirror
behind the model, an allusion reinforced in the painting's title, Reflecting
and Reflections, which refers not only to what we see but also the
sitter's meditative expression.
-
-
- Unidentified maker
- Easel used by Oscar Fehrer, early 20th century
- Wood, metal
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of Miss Catherine Fehrer
and Miss Elizabeth Fehrer
-
-
- Robert W. Vonnoh (1858-1933)
- Portrait of Bessie Potter Vonnoh
- 1907
- Oil on canvas
- Florence Griswold Museum, Purchase
- 2002.3
-
- Sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh and her husband, portraitist
Robert Vonnoh, shared a studio and apartment in New York, an arrangement
reflected in this double portrait. Bessie is shown at work with her clay,
while Robert is largely hidden by the canvas on his easel in the background.
-
- The Vonnohs' studio and living space on West 67th Street
was part of a cooperative building where other Lyme artists were tenants
and shareholders. The Vonnohs invested in "The Atelier" building
at 33 West 67th and moved there in 1905. The complex completed a process
begun at the Tenth Street Studios once occupied by William Merritt Chase
(seen in a painting hanging nearby), namely (as the New York Herald
observed), "bringing domesticity?wives, babies, and social life?into
the studios."
-
-
-
- [Thomas Cole section]
-
- Unidentified maker and Thomas Cole (1801-1848)
- Sketchbox with Italian scene, ca.1835-1845?
- Hinged mahogany box, oil paint, brass
- Greene County Historical Society?Bronck Museum
-
- Thomas Cole helped open American artists' eyes to the
beauty of their landscape, best captured when sketching outdoors. In addition
to depicting American subjects, he traveled to Italy, where he made sketches
using this portable sketchbox. Inside the lid, Cole painted a view of the
"Hill of Temples" from the interior space of the Temple of Olympian
Zeus at Agrigento, Sicily. Cole would later elaborate this and other Italian
sketches (including Study for "A Wild Scene," hanging
nearby) into larger compositions in the studio.
-
- The box includes several compartments for holding brushes,
paints, and other supplies. A palette fits into the largest compartment.
The paint splatters on the case indicate that it doubled as an easel for
the small panels Cole sketched outdoors.
-
-
- Unidentified maker
- Easel used by Thomas Cole, ca. 1830-1848
- Wood
- Greene County Historical Society?Bronck Museum
-
- Cole's easel represents a type in use for centuries,
since the popularization of oil painting in the fifteenth century. The
simple frame, supported by a single prop, features thirteen holes on each
side for pegs used to adjust the height of the canvas. The easel's height
suggests that it was ideal for composing large exhibition oils in the studio.
-
-
- Unidentified maker
- Oval Palette used by Thomas Cole, ca.1835-1848
- Wood, oil paint
- Greene County Historical Society?Bronck Museum
-
-
- Unidentified maker
- Palette used by Thomas Cole, ca. 1835-1848
- Wood, oil paint
- Greene County Historical Society?Bronck Museum
-
-
- Thomas Cole (1801-1848)
- Study for "A Wild
Scene," 1831
- Oil on canvas
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of the Hartford Steam
Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company
- 2002.1.34
-
- Through the support of his Connecticut patron Daniel
Wadsworth, English-born Thomas Cole painted landscapes that captured America's
natural beauty. This canvas, executed in Italy, is an early study for the
allegorical Course of Empire series of five paintings depicting
the rise and fall of a great civilization. Although the stormy landscape
appears untamed, the presence of small figures to the right of center suggests
that the process of settlement is beginning. Cole lamented that America's
quest for progress came at the cost of its wilderness and inspired other
artists of the Hudson River School to celebrate this unique national heritage.
-
-
-
- [Plein Air easels section]
-
- Matilda Browne (1869-1947)
- Peonies, ca. 1907
- Oil on wood
- Original Carrig-Rohane frame, 1907
- Florence Griswold Museum, Purchase
- 2013
-
- This recent addition to the Museum's collection embodies
the essence of plein-air painting. Matilda Browne captures the glorious
sunshine and lush color of a June day, when the peonies bloomed in profusion
in the garden of Katharine Ludington, down the street from Florence Griswold's
boardinghouse. While some Impressionists may have preferred to work on
a white ground, Browne nonetheless achieves brilliant sunlit effects against
the brown wood of a panel.
-
- Browne likely selected a wood panel as her support because
it could stand up to the rigors of outdoor sketching, which included wind
and uneven terrain. Wood panels could be propped inside a sketchbox or
clamped to a folding easel, all parts of the plein-air painter's
kit.
-
-
- Will Howe Foote (1874-1965)
- Fish House, Monhegan Island, Maine
- Oil on canvasboard
- Florence Griswold Museum, Purchase
- 1995.3
-
- Small sketches like this one are typical of the works
artists executed outdoors on folding easels such as the one owned by Will
Howe Foote (seen nearby). Foote traveled to Monhegan Island, a site beloved
by landscape painters, to record its picturesque fish houses. He would
have set his easel up near the shack, relying on the canvasboard to stand
up to the rigors of the islands breezes while remaining light and portable.
Special slotted paintboxes or carrying cases allowed artists to transport
damp sketches. Many artists viewed small paintings executed en plein
air as completed works, not simply studies for larger canvases.
-
-
- Unidentified maker
- Collapsible easel used by Will Howe Foote
- Wood, metal
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of Nancy N. Foote
- 93.11.3
-
- Lightweight, folding easels like this one, which was
used by Will Howe Foote, could be easily carried on sketching expeditions
and set up on uneven terrain. Some models were equipped with metal rods
that could tilt the canvas at the desired angle. Foote's easel is missing
a piece that would have braced the canvas at the bottom.
-
-
- Unidentified maker
- Box for sketch panels used by Will Howe Foote
- Wood
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of Nancy N. Foote
- 1993.11.2a
-
-
- Unidentified maker
- Paint supply box from William Chadwick's studio
- Wood, metal
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of Elizabeth Chadwick
O'Connell
- 1993.7
-
- In addition to holding supplies for painting, the lid
of this box could be propped open to act as an easel for panels while painting
outdoors. Every major supplier of artists' materials sold such boxes, which
could range from the most minimal to complex 'mini studios.'
-
-
- Unidentified maker
- Palette used by Carleton Wiggins
- Wood
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of Colonel Grafton Wiggins
- 1974.18
-
- Based on photographs of the artist at work, we know that
Wiggins used a large palette like this even when painting outdoors. This
example?more likely employed in the studio?is dedicated to a friend to
whom he gave it as a souvenir. Oil paint dries slowly, so Wiggins may have
felt that he had time to scrape the palette clean; however, over the years,
enough paint accumulated to give the surface an undulating contour. Wiggins
appears to have added a few dabs of bright new color to the top layer.
-
-
- French collapsible easel
- Wood
- Florence Griswold Museum
-
- The practice of plein-air painting took root in
France, where artists flocked to sketch outdoors in the forests near the
village of Barbizon. French manufacturers produced many of the finest supplies
for plein-air artists, including this adjustable folding easel,
shown in the collapsed position.
-
-
- Carleton Wiggins (1848-1942)
- October Day on the Connecticut
- Oil on wood
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of Mrs. Dorothy Clark
Archibald
- 1999.28.10
-
- Wiggins was proponent of painting outdoors in the spirit
of the French Barbizon painters who had worked en plein air beginning
in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. This small sketch is the
sort Wiggins would have executed in the field, where he would set up a
portable easel and prop his paintbox on a stool. Unlike the larger Seaside
Sheep Pasture, hanging nearby, a work like this would have been completed
entirely outdoors.
-
-
- Carleton Wiggins (1848-1942)
- Seaside Sheep Pasture, after
1906
- Oil on canvas
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of The Hartford Steam
Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company
- 2002.1.167
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- Wiggins, a disciple of the painter George Inness, plays
the fresh, springtime green of the pasture off against the creamy fleece
of the sheep. Wiggins came to Old Lyme in 1904, bringing with him the luscious
Barbizon-inspired color and soft texture seen in this painting. An accomplished
animal painter, he excelled at depicting flocks of sheep, which were a
common sight in Europe, where he trained, and became more popular in New
England as the animals proved suitable for the tired, rocky soil and cold
weather. Wiggins and his son often sketched around Lyme, and the elder
man liked the area so much that he bought a summer home here for his family.
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- [Lyme Artists' Easels]
-
- Unidentified maker
- Studio easel once belonging to Ivan Olinsky, ca. 1910
- Oak
- Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of Allan Denenberg in
honor of Mary and David Dangremond
- 2010.7
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- Ivan Olinsky (1878-1962)
- Farmer Roscoe, ca. 1937
- Oil on canvas