The Cos Cob Art Colony: Impressionists on the Connecticut Shore [Hardcover]

Dr. Susan G. Larkin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300088523 | ISBN-13: 978-0300088526 | Publication Date: March 1, 2001 | Edition: 1St Edition

What Argenteuil in the 1870s was to French Impressionists, Cos Cob between 1890 and 1920 was to American Impressionists Childe Hassam, Theodore Robinson, John Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, and their followers. These artists and writers came together to work in the modest Cos Cob section of Greenwich, Connecticut, testing new styles and new themes in the stimulating company of colleagues. This beautiful book is the first to examine the art colony at Cos Cob and the role it played in the development of American Impressionist art. During the art-colony period, says Susan Larkin, Greenwich was changing from a farming and fishing community to a prosperous suburb of New York. The artists who gathered in Cos Cob produced work that reflects the resulting tensions between tradition and modernity, nature and technology, and country and city. Their preferred subjects, which include colonial architecture, quiet landscapes, contemplative women, held a complex significance, which Larkin explores. Drawing on maritime history, garden design, women's studies, and more, she places the art colony in its cultural and historical context and reveals unexpected depth in paintings of enormous popular appeal. This generously illustrated book accompanies an exhibition that opens at the National Academy of Design in New York on 14 February 2001 and then travels to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on 17 June and the Denver Art Museum on 27 October.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From the Van Gogh-like strokes of Childe Hassam to Elmer MacRae's near-cubist hollyhocks, The Cos Cob Art Colony: Impressions on the Connecticut Shore offers an in-depth look at a lesser-known American movement. Between 1890 and 1920, artists and writers settled in a coastal section of Greenwich called Cos Cob, as the town shifted from fishing and farming to New York bedroom community, often meeting at the Holley family boarding house on the harbor. An independent scholar and former Metropolitan Museum of Art research fellow, Susan G. Larkin (a longtime Greenwich resident) takes readers through a generous sampling of 78 color and 67 b&w reproductions of works that are currently hanging at the National Academy of Design in New York and will travel to Houston and Denver later this year.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Frank W. Benson (1862-1951), who had dreamed of being an ornithological illustrator while studying at the Boston Museum, where he later became a teacher and director, had a full, award-filled career as a portraitist and painter of plein-air canvases. However, at midlife he chose to change direction and combine his life as an artist with his other passions: wildlife and sporting. Bedford, Benson's biographer (Frank W. Benson: An American Impressionist. o.p.) and guest curator of the retrospective of Benson's work that resulted in Frank W. Benson: New England Impressionist (Peabody Essex Museum, 2000), focuses here on this later period of his work. She draws on family memories and photos, diaries, and letters to acquaint us with an artist of international renown, presenting a devoted family man, keen observer, and consummate sportsman. Benson's etching, lithography, watercolor, and oil illuminate his world through images of geese in flight, hunters and dogs, a lone fisherman, and misty lakes and landscapes. Bedford also includes a chronology of the artist. These two lushly illustrated works make good companions, showing the great talent of American impressionists from a similar period and style. Bedford's is recommended for extensive collections of American art; Larkin's unique study is recommended for all collections. Joseph Hewgley, Nashville P.L.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1St Edition edition (March 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300088523
• ISBN-13: 978-0300088526
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 9.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,707 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #25 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Post-Impressionism

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Overall, Very Good, October 12, 2005

By 

Joseph Reader (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cos Cob Art Colony: Impressionists on the Connecticut Shore (Hardcover)

This book contains a few truly beautiful paintings, but also some that, in my opinion, are not particularly beautiful or interesting. It gets 4 stars by virtue of the genuine beauty of the few. It's hard to judge just how well any book reproduces works of art, but the quality of these reproductions SEEMS to be fine. And while I applaud publishers who print on acid-free or alkaline paper--as is purportedly the case for this book--the pages of the copy I saw (printed in 2001) are already starting to yellow at the edges.