In Bloom:
Moutain Laurel and the Lyme Art Colony

In Bloom: Mountain Laurel and the Lyme Art Colony celebrates the state flower as an inspiration for artists. In the early years of the Lyme Art Colony few motifs generated more interest than mountain laurel (kalmia latifolia). The bushes, which reach their peak in June, grew in such abundance around southeastern Connecticut that the area was described as “one of the finest laurel gardens in the world” by a 1914 newspaper. The plant became a frequent subject among the artists who stayed at Florence Griswold’s boardinghouse. They responded to laurel’s status as a characteristic New England plant and to the sheer beauty of the profuse white and pink blossoms. Laurel paintings for the exhibition were drawn from the Museum’s permanent holdings as well as from select private collections.

An Artist’s Delight
During his first visit to Old Lyme in 1905, Willard Metcalf made the laurel growing on the banks of the Lieutenant River the subject of a major work, Kalmia, that received acclaim when it was exhibited in Old Lyme, and later in New York and at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. In 2009, with the help of a generous consortium of donors, the Museum purchased Kalmia. Viewed today as one of the most important paintings acquired in the Museum’s history, this painting serves as the cornerstone of the exhibition. The success of Metcalf’s Kalmia and of another 1905 laurel picture, Childe Hassam’s June, owned by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, sealed the laurel’s status as a central theme for the colony, much like the area’s rocky ledges and Old Lyme’s historic Congregational Church. Frank Bicknell even chose to immortalize the plant in the panel he painted in 1910 for the Griswold House dining room. In addition to Metcalf and Hassam, painters such as Matilda Browne, Roger Curel-Sylvestre, William Chadwick, Harry Hoffman, William S. Robinson, Edward Rook, and Caro Weir Ely are among the colony artists who depicted laurel, carrying the practice on for the next two decades.

The State Flower
On April 17, 1907, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a bill naming mountain laurel the official state flower. A representative of the Daughters of the American Revolution asked whether there could be any flower “more suggestive of the sturdy qualities of our Connecticut men and women, than mountain laurel.” Lyme artists’ enthusiasm for the motif coincided with this move to acknowledge the flower as an emblem of Connecticut. Their continuing engagement with the theme of laurel well into the 1920s reflects their feeling that it embodied the spirit of the state whose landscapes they so loved.

In Bloom is presented with the generous support of the Connecticut Humanities Council and Bouvier ● Champion Insurance.

Images:
Matilda Browne (1869–1947), Vase of Flowers, 1905. Oil on canvas, 16 x 12 inches. Collection of Drs. Kristina and John Antoniades

Willard Metcalf (1858–1925), Kalmia, 1905. Oil on canvas, 34 x 34 inches. Museum Purchase through The Nancy B. Krieble Acquisition Fund, with the support of Geddes and Kathy Parsons; The Dorothy Clark Archibald Acquisition Fund; Helen E. Krieble; V. J. Dowling; Max and Sally Belding; Richard and Barbara Booth; Mr. and Mrs. David W. Dangremond; Charles and Irene Hamm; William E. Phillips and Barbara Smith; Andy Baxter; Charles T. Clark; Jonathan L. Cohen; Jim and Hedy Korst; Mr. and Mrs. S. Van Vliet Lyman; Clement C. and Elizabeth Moore; Robert and Betsey Webster; Renée Wilson; Peter and Karen Cummins, and a small group of members.

Lawton Parker (1868–1954), Laurel, n.d. Oil on artist’s board, 10 x 11 7/8 inches. Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of the Artist

William S. Robinson (1861–1945), Mountain Laurel, 1911. Oil on canvas, 24 x 32 inches (framed 33 x 41). Collection of Drs. Kristina and John Antoniades