Weekend Seven

Began the day at Elizabeth Park, before their Rose Weekend Festival, in Hartford, on the edge of West. Hartford. It rained the day before and the sky was gray in the early morning, but the weather broke and we had a beautiful day.

Elizabeth Park, named for the wife of industrialist Charles Pond, is the first municipal rose garden in the US. Formerly Pond’s estate, the 102-acre park was founded in 1897 and the first 100 bushes were planted in 1904. There are now 15,000 bushes of over 800 varieties in the 2.5-acre garden. Here are a few shots:

And some non-Rose participants:

We then drove to the southeastern corner of Connecticut. Our first stop was the Florence Griswold Museum, "Home of American Impressionism," in Old Lyme. Since we got there a few minutes before the museum opened we walked down to the edge of the Lieutenant River for the views.

The Lieutenant River

Turns out these are the same views painted by artists on the forefront of artistic transition from Tonalism to Impressionism. American Impressionism. The first name I think of is, of course, Childe Hassam, and he did spend some time in Old Lyme, but the first person on the scene was an artist named Henry Ward Ranger. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of the story.

Florence Griswold ran a boarding house in 1897 when Ranger came to Old Lyme in search of a place to start an Art Colony such as those he found in Europe. He called it American Barbizon and centered on his Tonal leanings. I really didn’t want to get into too many details, but I found it helpful to understand that Tonal featured dark paintings of earthy colors. The light in the work was small and directed. When Hassam arrived in 1903, the focus shifted from Tonalism to Impressionism.

Henry Ward Ranger

Among the resident artists included the other giant of American Impressionism, Willard Metcalf. They called themselves the “Hot Air Club,” and the “Knockers,” but officially they were called the School of Lyme. The rolls show ninety-five artists, men and women, spent time at the boarding house between 1903 and 1920.

the Parlor

Some lived at the boarding house; the barns smelled of paint and small studio buildings dotted the property. Others, such as William Chadwick, had homes in the area. Chadwick’s studio was moved to the Griswold Museum and restored. Other artists that came to Old Lyme included:

William Henry Howe, William Howe Foote, Matilda Brown, Walter Griffin, Alphonse Jongers, Henry Rankin Poore, Bessie Potter Vonnoh and husband Robert, Frederick Church, Edward Rook, Henry Kenyon, and Ivan Olinsky.

The house is a large late-Georgian jewel built in 1817 and home to Florence’s ship captain father and family before it was filled with the Art of artist/boarders as it is now. In addition to the works framed and hanging, Mr. Ranger took it upon himself to paint a night scene on a panel of one of the doors in the front hallway. He challenged Metcalf to paint a complimentary panel next to it, and so he painted a dog to howl at Ranger’s moon.

Thus began a frenzy of panel painting. William Henry Howe painted a cow on the panels of a door in the front parlor:

The dining room was conveniently lined with dark wood panels like the doors, and so the painting continued. Included among the paintings are two by Hassam and a panoramic caricature of many of the colony’s residence imitating a fox hunt and running down the road from out in front of the house into Old Lyme. Along the way the many residents are represented by a host of personal and well-known characteristics. Included is Childe Hassam painting plein-air while bare-chested, as an ecstatic Matilda Brown gives him the once over. Thanks to the docents for taking the time to tell us the stories.

Childe Hassam did the door panels.

We actually began our tour of the Museum complex at a contemporary building facing the river (where the Griswold House faced the road. The new galleries were filled with paintings appropriate to the place: American Impressionist. A whole gallery filled was with paintings of newly painted Mountain Laurel just like they did a hundred years ago. A current exhibition of paintings on loan from the Hartford Steam Boiler Collection featured works by many of the colony artists.

Outside Patrick Dougherty of North Carolina has created a wonderful sculpture called The Rambles. There are also lovely heritage gardens and lovely plantings everywhere.

The Rambles

It was time to hit the beaches, so we continued into Old Lyme in search of a carousel located on Soundview Beach. I need to explain that the majority of beachfront is private property and in Old Lyme the majority of streets were gated with security. After a couple of sets of directions, we turned down the correct street and located the carousel in question. It was a good thing that there was 15-minute parking in front because the carousel (which is an indoor ride) only runs at night for a couple of hours. And while the horses looked old, the rest was decorated rather oddly, with none of the touches of a period carousel. Besides, any more than fifteen minutes and you have to pay $20 to park in order to remain in the area.

We stopped at The Old Lyme Seafood Market for lobster rolls. Just $13.95. A hot one was a dollar more. Turned out it was a lobster salad roll. Nice enough.  Though it looked like a private area, the owner let us sit out back and eat our lunch while looking out at the fog on Long Island Sound.

Passed by a wonderfully decorated school in Niantic:

Searched for another carousel on a boardwalk in New London. After another interesting search we found that you had to pay $18 parking in order to even get near the carousel. Don’t think so.

Downtown New London is a bit hard to describe, but I will say that we saw an old multi-story commercial building with a view of the Thames River (pronounced like “James”) for $150,000. Beautiful second floor window. But, again, don’t think so. We did, however, have ice cream that was allegedly made locally just for them. Marie had chocolate chip and coffee, and I had Extreme Chocolate and Purple Cow (raspberry with white chocolate and blueberries). Very drippy out in the hot afternoon sun.  Washed off our hands in the Whale Tail fountain.

nearby war memorial

Next was the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, overlooking scenic I-95. A very nice museum, founded in 1932 housed in a Neo-Classical building with a permanent collection of over 10,000 items.

Current exhibitions included a display of portraits. Another was a collection of contemporary realist paintings and then there are ongoing galleries displaying the permanent collection. Art by a galaxy of artists including Rembrandt Peale, Benjamin West, Gilbert Stuart, Reginald Marsh, Childe Hassam and Willard Metcalf. Here are few we liked:

Helen Madjeska the Actress by Robert Aiken

Rainy Day, Pont Aven by Martha Walter

The Shepherdess on a tile by Winslow Homer

Spanish Sisters by Abram Poole was painted while he was married to Mercedes de Acosta, the poet and playwright best known for her numerous lesbian affairs with Hollywood celebrities including Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo. Poole went with his second wife to Old Lyme.

Spanish Sisters by Abram Poole

Outside were a few sculptures:

Warlock III by David Smiley, 1974

 

Since we had a few more minutes, before leaving the area, we stopped again in Old Lyme at the Lyme Art Association. Actually right next to the Griswold Museum. The LAA was founded in 1914 and the gallery, built on land purchased from Florence Griswold, opened in 1921. It was designed to fit into an old New England village setting, but inside were galleries with beautiful overhead light.

We took yet one more side trip on the way home, to visit the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam overlooking the Connecticut River.

And with that we made the short drive home.

Sunday was booked for me to sell “dogs” at the First Company Governor’s Horse Guard’s 32nd Annual Horse show in Avon. Without me going into a rant, I’ll just say it was the smallest show I’d ever seen. Very few spectators and only three vendors. After five hours of no interest, while we were packing up the car, a little girl, who had seen the dogs previously, came by with her grandmother who, after much deliberation, bought Old Paint Rag for her. Hoorah!

Da Dogs

After a breather, we went downtown for a concert at the Riverside Stage. A tribute to Ella. But it wasn’t there, so we had a picnic on the bank of the CT River with some Vietnamese take-out we got on Park Rd East.