M. FORD CREECH ANTIQUES
 

 

WILLARD LEROY METCALF

American (Connecticut) 1858-1925

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"A VALLEY LANDSCAPE"

Pastel on paper, signed W. L. Metcalf, and dated 1919 lower right

(Purportedly painted at Woodbury, Connecticut)

Housed in a 22k giltwood frame with silk liner and giltwood fillet

 

Note: A probable sketchbook study in preparation for “Maytime” of 1919, a 36" x 39" oil on canvas.  The pastel image is from a slightly

different vantage point, but incorporates many of the same elements as the larger oil. (There is also listed an earlier oil also entitled “Maytime”,

from 1909.)  “Maytime” (1919) achieved Metcalf's second highest auction price, reaching 940,000.00 USD, May 2006, Sotheby’s NY.

 

Provenance: by descent, three generations in a Canadian family collection

 

Museums: 55, including The Metropolitan Museum; The Smithsonian, National Gallery and Freer; Boston Museum;

Florence Griswold Museum; Musée d'Art Américain Giverny; The White House

 

Books: 175, including, May Night: Willard Metcalf at Old Lyme, Chambers; Willard Metcalf: Yankee Impressionist.

 Boyle; Sunlight and Shadow: Willard Metcalf, Life and Work, Devere;

Willard Leroy Metcalf: A Retrospective, Murphy; The Ten, Patricia Pierce

 

Periodicals: 40, including American Art Review (32); The Magazine Antiques (4)

 

 Image size: 12.75” x 11"

 

Willard Metcalf was one of the most important Impressionist landscape painters and members of "The Ten" – an early

20th century group of Boston and New York painters committed to impressionism, with whom he exhibited until 1897. 

He became known as the "quintessential painter of New England landscapes", his style fusing the best of French impressionism,

gleaned from the Academy Julian, with the American spirit of realism. His short curved brushstrokes, strong composition and

clear colors depicted the New England landscapes with an enigmatic soft but powerful combination.

 

In 1919, Metcalf painted his second version of "Maytime", the painting achieving both the second and third places among

his auction records.  "Maytime" (1919) was purportedly painted near Woodbury, CT.  The offered pastel is a sketchbook 

depictionof the same scene from a slightly different vantage point, signed and also dated 1919, lower right.  The provenance is

with a Canadian family, for three generations.

 

Metcalf's works are represented in museums throughout America, as well as The White House

and the Musée d'Art Américain Giverny in France.

 

SOLD

#5512

 

 

 

For related works on paper, please click below:

  

Arthur C. Goodwin

Robert Henri

Edmund C. Tarbell

Thomas P. Anshutz

 

 

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We welcome and encourage all inquiries.  We will make every attempt to answer any questions you might have.

 

 


 

METCALF, Willard Leroy (1858-1925)

 

Birth place: Lowell, MA

Death place: NYC

Addresses: Boston, MA; Old Lyme, CT, 1905-07; Northwestern CT, periodically, 1910-25; NYC

Profession: Landscape painter, teacher, illustrator

 

 

Studied: Massachusetts Normal Art School, 1874; apprenticed to Geo. L. Brown, plus life classes at Lowell Institute, both in Boston, 1875; Boston Museum of Fine Arts School, 1876-79 (scholarship); Academie Julian, Paris with G. Boulanger & J.J. Lefebvre, 1883-89.

 

Exhibited: Boston Art Club, 1879-89; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art Annual, 1883, 1893-1919, 1924 (gold medal, 1907, 1912); Paris Salon, 1888 (prize); St. Botolph Club, 1889 (solo), 1906; Columbian Expo, Chicago, 1893 (medal; 

Society of American Artists, 1896 (prize); Ten American Painters, annually, 1898-1919; Paris Expo, 1900 (prize); Pan-American Expo, Buffalo, 1901 (medal); St. Louis Expo, 1904 (medal); Fishel, Adler & Schwartz Gallery, NYC, 1905 (solo); Montross Gallery, 1910, 1911; Corcoran Gallery biennials, 1907-23 (10 times, including gold medal, 1907); Corcoran Gallery, 1925 (solo); Art Institute of Chicago, 1910 (silver medal); Buenos Aires Expo, 1910 (gold medal); Montross Gallery, NYC 1910 (solo); Newport Art Association, 1912 (inaugural); Milch Gallery, NYC, 1925 (memorial); Spanierman Gallery, NYC, 1996 (retrospective); Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 1999

 

Member: refused membership in National Academy of Design; American Watercolor Society; Ten American Painters (a founder); National Institute of Arts & Letters; League American Artists; Players Club, NYC; Century Association; American Academy of Arts & Letters

 

Work: Corcoran Gallery of Art; Cincinnati Museum; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Worcester (MA) Art Museum; National Gallery; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art; Detroit Art Institute; Art Institute of Chicago; Rhode Island School of Design; Freer Gallery, Washington, DC; Phillips Academy, Andover, MA; Brooklyn Museum; Hackley Art Gallery, Muskegon, MI; Carnegie Institute; St. Louis Museum; Rochester Memorial Museum; Albright Gallery, Buffalo; New Orleans Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Britain (CT) Museum of Art; Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe.

 

Comments: One of the most important Impressionist landscape painters and member of "The Ten." His career as an illustrator lasted from 1880-1902, including an important commission from Century magazine in 1881-82 depicting the Zuni Indians. He then studied in Paris, and painted landscapes at Grez near Barbizon, at Pont-Aven, Brittany, and at Giverny, Normandy. He also painted at East Anglia, England, and in Algeria and Tunisia (1887). He returned to Boston in 1888, then moved to NYC in 1890. In 1903 he exhibited with "The Ten," and made the first of many trips to the colony at Old Lyme (CT). He received great acclaim for landscapes painted at Old Lyme, and winter scenes at the Cornish (NH) colony (from 1909-on). He made a return visit to Paris in 1913, then on to Norway, Italy, and England, but returned in 1914 due to WWI. From 1920-24, he painted all over New England, including Cornish (NH), Chester (VT), Kennebunkport (ME), and Falls Village (CT). He taught at Cooper Union and the ASL. Signature note: From the 1870s-c.83, he signed as "W. L. Metcalf" in upper/lower case with flourishes. Although he continued to occasionally sign this way, from the mid 1880s he signed more simply in block letters; and sometimes signed with his monogram, an "M" within a circle.

 

Sources: WW24; P&H Samuels, 322; E. DeVeer, "Willard Metcalf in Cornish, New Hampshire," Antiques (Nov. 1984, p.1208); Eldredge, et al., Art in New Mexico, 1900-45, 203; Connecticut and American Impressionism 167-68 (w/repro.); Richard Boyle & E. DeVeer, Sunlight and Shadow: The Life and Art of Willard Metcalf (Abbeville, NY, 1988); Barbara J. MacAdam, Winter's Promise: Willard Metcalf in Cornish, New Hampshire, 1909-1920 (exh. cat., Hanover, NH: Hood Mus. of A., Dartmouth College, 1999); Falk, Exh. Record Series.

 

This biography is drawn from the 'Who Was Who in American Art’, the reference book on the cultural life in the United States.

 

 

 

 Museums: 55

 

Addison Gallery of American Art

Akron Art Museum

Ball State University Museum of Art

Bush-Holley Historic Museum

Butler Institute of American Art

Chrysler Museum of Art

Cornish Colony Museum

Dallas Museum of Art

De Young Museum

Denver Art Museum

Florence Griswold Museum

Frederic Remington Art Museum

Freer Gallery of Art

Hood Museum of Art

LaSalle University Art Museum

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art

Mead Art Museum

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute

Musée d'Art Américain Giverny

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Museum of Fine Arts-Springfield

Museum of New Mexico

Muskegon Museum of Art

National Gallery of Art

New Britain Museum of American Art

North Carolina Museum of Art

 Oklahoma City Museum of Art

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Rhode Island School of Design-Museum of Art

Rochester Art Center

Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College

San Diego Museum of Art

Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery

Smith College Museum of Art

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Telfair Museum of Art

The Brooklyn Museum of Art

The Columbus Museum of Art-Ohio

The Columbus Museum-Georgia

The Cummer Museum Of Art & Gardens

The Currier Museum of Art

The Detroit Institute of Arts

The Hudson River Museum

The Huntington Library & Gallery

The Hyde Collection

The Parrish Art Museum

The University of Michigan Museum of Art

The Washington County Museum of Fine Arts

The White House

University Of Kentucky Art Museum

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

Yale University Art Gallery

 

Books: 175 including all major indices and dictionaries, and the following monographs:

 

Chambers, Bruce W, May Night: Willard Metcalf at Old Lyme

Boyle, Richard; Bruce Chambers, Willard Metcalf: Yankee Impressionist

Spanierman, Ira (Intro), Willard Metcalf: Yankee Impressionist

MacAdam, Barbara J, Winter's Promise: Willard Metcalf In Cornish, New Hampshire

DeVere, Eliza/R J Boyle, Sunlight and Shadow: Willard Metcalf, Life and Work

Murphy, Francis, Willard Leroy Metcalf: A Retrospective

Pierce, Patricia Jobe, The Ten

 

Periodicals: 40 including

 

American Art Review, 2006 October, The Florence Griswold House

Fine Art Connoisseur, 2006, March, Willard Metcalf: Winter's Promise

The Magazine Antiques, 2005 July. Willard Metcalf in the Southwest

American Art Review, 2005 March, Willard Metcalf at Old Lyme

American Art Review, 199 February, Willard Metcalf in Cornish

 

 

 

We welcome and encourage all inquiries.  We will make every attempt to answer any questions you might have.

 

 For information, call (901) 761-1163 or (901) 827-4668 or email mfcreech@bellsouth.net 

 

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