My Museum Experience: More on Metcalf...

After my tour through the Florence Griswold museum where I deeply admired the work of Willard Metcalf I found that not only did he spend summers at the Griswold home he spent several years traveling through Europe.

This here is a self portrait of Metcalf which is owned by the Florence Griswold Museum.

Metcalf was born in 1858 in Lowell Massachusetts. He was an avid art enthusiast early on and was a student at Massachusetts Normal Art School and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Metcalf’s early art work was mainly figure painting but by the end of his career his art work had transitioned to landscape paintings. Metcalf traveled to many locations including: Paris, Europe, Giverny, Algeria, and later on to Cuba. He was one of the first American artists to visit Giverny, which was a renowned French village where Claude Monet lived and worked.

This painting was done by Metcalf while in Giverny in 1887.
The Florence Griswold Museum contains the largest collection of Metcalf’s work, with objects including oils paintings, pastels, sketchbooks, and his diary, among other things.
Metcalf produced many of his most important and highly recognized pieces of art while staying at the Griswold home.
He is remembered as remarkable impressionist and landscape painter, winning national recognition for his art that was created in Old Lyme.

This painting, May Night, 1906, is the view of the Griswold home on one May night. May Night was awarded a gold medal and the Clark prize among a couple other paintings Metcalf did while residing at the Griswold estate.