1858 -1925 · New England, seasons and American impressionism

First snow, vibrant birches and spring valleys make Willard Metcalf the great seasonal poet of New England.

Willard Leroy Metcalf was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1858 and died in New York in 1925. An apprentice wood engraver then a student of the landscaper George Loring Brown, he studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In 1881, he participated in a Smithsonian expedition to the American Southwest and drew landscapes, peoples and desert life. The sale of these studies financed his departure for Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian with Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre. He traveled to France, England, North Africa and Italy. The sale of these studies financed his departure for Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian with Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre. He traveled to France, England, North Africa and Italy. In 1881, he discovered Giverny, then stayed there for a long time in 1886 and 1887. Claude Monet. Metcalf assimilates the outdoors, the divided touch and the changing light without becoming a simple disciple. Returning to the United States in 1888, he worked as an illustrator and teacher, then joined the Ten American Painters group in 1898. His true maturity came after 1900, when he devoted himself to the woods, rivers and villages of Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire. At Old Lyme, May Night transformed Florence Griswold's white, moon-wrapped home into silent vision; the work received first prize and the gold medal from the Corcoran Gallery in 1907. The First Snow, Indian Summer, Vermont or The Northern Country did not only describe a region. Metcalf organizes climate variations, distances and colors as a sensitive memory of the passing of time. Influential to the Cornish colony, his painting gives the American landscape a modern intimacy. The "Willard Metcalf" selection notably compares May Night and The Land of the North. His reading favors light.

Metcalf paints less of a view than a changing season: snow, water, shade and foliage become sensitive measures of time.