Willard Metcalf was an American Impressionist painter. He was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in the year 1858.
For his artistic education Metcalf attended the Museum of the School of Fine Arts located in Boston, Massachusetts. He also attended the Julien Academy located in Paris, France.
He himself taught at the Art Students League of New York and at Cooper Union College in New York city.
Metcalf worked in oils and watercolors quite frequently. He was a member of the American Watercolor Society.
Metcalf started painting in 1874 and two years later had opened his own studio.
He started taking lessons in 1876 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and studied there for two years.
After a great exhibition and sale of his works Metcalf headed to Europe to study various artists and techniques. Metcalf lived in Europe for five years from 1883 to 1888. In France he painted with American painters John Twachtman and Theodore Robinson. The artist’s work prior to this was mainly of peasants. After this we rarely see people in his landscapes, and a wonderful concentration on color and composition. Some of his landscapes focus on the bright fall changing colors of the leaves.
These paintings remind me of contemporary American artist Lynn Boggess. Boggess paints without brushes, just using cement trowels to push paint around. Boggess paints plein air and develops wonderful textures on his canvas WITHOUT the use of a brush but with more control then you might see from an artist just using the palette knife such as Sandra Pratt. Below is an example of Lynn Boggess.
In this clip a short montage of works by Willard Metcalf. The artist was a tremendous painter of the American landscape. Metcalf travelled the world in searching for great painting sites.
In 1886 he visited Giverny, France and was among the first American painters to visit the locale. Other painters followed and he spent three straight summers in Giverny. Many other American painters followed him.
Metcalf returned to the United States and lived on the East coast. He was a teacher as well as mural painter and illustrator of books.
Price range information: The artist was very prolific in oils and they can be found from $2,000 to $1.54 million. Works in pastel can be found from $3,000 to $10,000. He also worked in gouache and watercolors but I was unable to get a price range for those.
Metcalf married a stage entertainer who was twenty years young than he in 1903 and one of his favorite models to paint!
A few years later Metcalf spent summers painting in Old Lyme, Connecticut. This is a great artist colony and marine master John Stobart has a scholarship fund for students looking to attend classes.
1907 was a great year for the artist career wise, he won the Corcoran medal for best painting and a cash purchase prize of $3,000. He was the first American painter to be purchased by the group. But his wife took off with a male student of his and his marriage ended.
He passed away at age 66 in 1925.
Metcalf is one of my favorite painters of the bright colors that exist in the fall landscape. Later in his career he also became a fantastic painter of snow.
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