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CONNECTICUT LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS:

            Located in historic Woodbury Connecticut, Woodbury Antiques and Fine Art is pleased to present an October exhibition of Connecticut Landscape Painting. Just in time for leaf season this exhibition is meant to be a visual reward for those who seek the scenic countryside of nearby New England in autumn. Artists in the exhibition include George Henry Smillie, Eugene Francis Savage, Hobart Nichols, Walter Clark, Walter Griffin, American School, 19^th Century, William Trost Richards and many more.

            About some of the most noted artists here, much can be written. For example Eugene Francis Savage (1883-1978), will be the subject of a forthcoming exhibition at the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville, Florida in a year or two to be followed up afterwards by a touring show throughout the south. That exhibition will focus on Savage’s paintings of the Florida Seminole Indians from the 1930’s concurrent with efforts to preserve primeval marshlands and swamps that culminated with the creation of the Everglades National Park. The painting by Savage in this show is a local scene done from the artist’s studio on Old Sherman Hill Road in Woodbury, CT, looking northwest towards the village proper, which also was Savage’s home after his retirement from full time teaching at Yale University where he had been the Leffingwell Professor of Painting and Design from the mid 1920’s onward. Besides at the Cummer Museum, paintings by Savage can be seen in the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; San Diego Museum of Art, CA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.

            The painting seen here by George Smiley dates from about the 1880’s and has a Winslow Homer type “Glare Aesthetic” look to it and likely was done in Litchfield County. According to the exhibition records of the National Academy of Design, from 1884 to 1893 Smillie painted in western Connecticut from Salisbury in the north to Ridgefield, CT in the south. His works are found in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; The Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; the New-York Historical Society, NY, NY; the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; and the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI.

            The exhibition runs from October 11, 2008 through November 2, 2008. The Opening Reception, complete with wine and cheese, will be held on Saturday, October 11^th from 12pm to 5pm, for all inquires, hours and appointments, please call (203)266.4753. Woodbury Antiques and Fine Art is located at 473 Main Street South, Woodbury, CT 06798. For additional information, photos of most of these works in the show are available on-line on our website, along with newly created photo gallery sections on our furniture and sculpture, at:  http://woodburyantiquesfineart.com

Illustrations:

George Henry Smillie (1840-1921), “Windy Day, Connecticut Hilltop,” 10 by 14 inches, oil/panel

Eugene Francis Savage (1883-1978), “Woodbury, CT, 1966,” 18 by 20 inches, acrylic/board