Lot Essay
"...Take the picturesque East Boothbay Harbor with its subtle tones of gray and its still more subtle arrangement of lines. The sweep of the shore... the sprawling buildings on the right, the projecting lines of rough piers, and the masses of the landscape beyond, are all set forth with that swift touch to which we have referred..." (New York Tribune, Feb. 4, 1905)
The anonymous reviewer's response to East Boothbay Harbor typified the critical acclaim that greeted Metcalf's 1905 one-person exhibition at Fishel, Adler & Schwartz in New York City. The twenty-one canvases that Metcalf included in that show represented, in his own words, a "renaissance" in both his personal life and the direction of his career. Almost since his return from Giverny in 1888 the artist had been plagued by excessive drinking, gambling debts, and sporadic productivity, but in 1903 he made a break from the city and returned to Maine, where his parents had acquired a farmhouse and land at Clark's Cove on the Damariscotta Peninsula. For the next year, Metcalf focussed his attention on painting the landscape in and around the Boothbays and the Peninsula. East Boothbay Harbor was painted from the vantage point of the Barlow Hill Road property of the Rice family, who were the owners of the boatworks depicted below.
The paintings of this period consolidate a profound change in the artist's approach that had been evident as early as 1895, when he painted with Hassam in Gloucester. Like other pictures of the period, the composition of East Boothbay Harbor is a bold and uncluttered arrangement of diagonals, tempered by a cool, atmospheric haziness. The high-keyed color scheme, with its subtle variations in value, and short, rhythmic brushstrokes, mark the artist's final break with the more naturalistic palette and sometimes illustrational quality of his earlier paintings. Painted at a turning point in his career, it exemplifies the direction Metcalf's work would take in his mature years--"lyrical, well thought-out, and attentive to the nuances of local atmosphere conditions..." (Rodriguez Roque, p. 1004)
The years 1903-06 were also a watershed for the Ten. Metcalf included East Boothbay Harbor in the group's first annual exhibition with their new dealer, Montross Gallery, in March and April of 1905. Their shift that year from Durand-Ruel, the early champion of French Impressionism, to Montross, signalled the end of the Ten's position as the gadfly of the American painting scene, and the group's new-found popularity mirrored Metcalf's own increasing respectability and acceptance as one of the country's premiere landscape painters.
The success of the 1905 annual inspired the Ten to organize an ambitious nation-wide tour, and East Boothbay Harbor was sent to O'Brien's Gallery in Chicago in 1907, after traveling to the Rhode Island School of Design, the Carnegie Institute, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in 1905 and 1906.
Dr. McDonough identified this work as "my favorite painting in the collection", citing contemporary critic Royal Cortissoz's assessment of Metcalf's power to create "a seemingly unstudied episode from the Maine Coast in which the composition is nevertheless almost formal in the perfection of its balance..." (Cortissoz, p. 144)
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Willard L. Metcalf catalogue raisonné authored by Dr. Bruce W. Chambers, Ira Spanierman and Dr. William H. Gerdts.
The anonymous reviewer's response to East Boothbay Harbor typified the critical acclaim that greeted Metcalf's 1905 one-person exhibition at Fishel, Adler & Schwartz in New York City. The twenty-one canvases that Metcalf included in that show represented, in his own words, a "renaissance" in both his personal life and the direction of his career. Almost since his return from Giverny in 1888 the artist had been plagued by excessive drinking, gambling debts, and sporadic productivity, but in 1903 he made a break from the city and returned to Maine, where his parents had acquired a farmhouse and land at Clark's Cove on the Damariscotta Peninsula. For the next year, Metcalf focussed his attention on painting the landscape in and around the Boothbays and the Peninsula. East Boothbay Harbor was painted from the vantage point of the Barlow Hill Road property of the Rice family, who were the owners of the boatworks depicted below.
The paintings of this period consolidate a profound change in the artist's approach that had been evident as early as 1895, when he painted with Hassam in Gloucester. Like other pictures of the period, the composition of East Boothbay Harbor is a bold and uncluttered arrangement of diagonals, tempered by a cool, atmospheric haziness. The high-keyed color scheme, with its subtle variations in value, and short, rhythmic brushstrokes, mark the artist's final break with the more naturalistic palette and sometimes illustrational quality of his earlier paintings. Painted at a turning point in his career, it exemplifies the direction Metcalf's work would take in his mature years--"lyrical, well thought-out, and attentive to the nuances of local atmosphere conditions..." (Rodriguez Roque, p. 1004)
The years 1903-06 were also a watershed for the Ten. Metcalf included East Boothbay Harbor in the group's first annual exhibition with their new dealer, Montross Gallery, in March and April of 1905. Their shift that year from Durand-Ruel, the early champion of French Impressionism, to Montross, signalled the end of the Ten's position as the gadfly of the American painting scene, and the group's new-found popularity mirrored Metcalf's own increasing respectability and acceptance as one of the country's premiere landscape painters.
The success of the 1905 annual inspired the Ten to organize an ambitious nation-wide tour, and East Boothbay Harbor was sent to O'Brien's Gallery in Chicago in 1907, after traveling to the Rhode Island School of Design, the Carnegie Institute, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in 1905 and 1906.
Dr. McDonough identified this work as "my favorite painting in the collection", citing contemporary critic Royal Cortissoz's assessment of Metcalf's power to create "a seemingly unstudied episode from the Maine Coast in which the composition is nevertheless almost formal in the perfection of its balance..." (Cortissoz, p. 144)
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Willard L. Metcalf catalogue raisonné authored by Dr. Bruce W. Chambers, Ira Spanierman and Dr. William H. Gerdts.