The 125th
Anniversary of the Cornish Colony
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The creative talents of the artists of the Cornish Colony were instrumental in shaping the aesthetic taste of the nation at the turn of the past century. Today, many still consider that aesthetic standard to represent the Golden Age in American art and culture. This legacy is an integral part of the fabric of our national heritage. The Parrish House Museum is committed to present the works of this Golden Age during this, the 125th anniversary of the founding of the colony by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. In 1885, at the invitation of his friend, famous New York attorney Charles C. Beaman, Augustus Saint-Gaudens arrived in Cornish looking for “Lincoln type men” to pose for this Standing Lincoln (1884-1887) sculpture. Saint-Gaudens acquired land and a decrepit former tavern from Beaman and began inviting other artist friends from New York to join him. In 1886, Thomas and Maria Dewing arrived, followed by Laura and Henry Walker, Charles Platt, and his friend Stephen Parrish. His son Maxfield Parrish moved to the area with his bride Lydia Parrish in 1898. This forward looking artistic enclave soon drew other visitors and friends from a nearby artist colony in Dublin, NH. Abbott Thayer, George de Forest Brush, Barry Faulkner and Kenyon Cox cajoled, delighted and lavishly criticized each other’s work. The camaraderie that existed between them was unparalleled. Saint-Gaudens first coined the term: “A Circle of Friends”, thus referring to the artists of both colonies. This camaraderie gave America’s Gilded Age some of its finest and most esteemed men and women artists. Herbert Adams, Daniel Chester French, Paul Manship, Frederick MacMonnies, James Earle and Laura Fraser, John White Alexander, Henry and Edith Prellwitz and Robert and Bessie Potter Vonnoh just to name a few joined the Saint-Gaudens coterie of painters, sculptors and writers who congregated here, to be inspired by and to be near their peers. Today, every major American museum and art collection has in its inventory choice works by these same artists, these icons of the Golden Age. Alma Gilbert-Smith, Director March, 2010
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 Maxfield Parrish "Study for Misty Morn" (1954) Private collection |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A major
exhibition for the summer 2010 in the area featuring Cornish Colony
artists is at the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, NH
The Tyler Museum of Art in Tyler, Texas will put on a major exhibition featuring works from two major colletions of Cornish Colony Art. The collections are the Graham & Jean Devoe Williford Charitable Trust and the Peter and Alma Smith Private Collection. The dates of this show are January – April 2011
The Tyler Museum of Art in Tyler, Texas will put on a major exhibition featuring works from two major colletions of Cornish Colony Art. The collections are the Graham & Jean Devoe Williford Charitable Trust and the Peter and Alma Smith Private Collection. The dates of this show are January – April 2011