Friends of Alten, Spring Event - 2023

Just the Place for High Thinking and Low Living: The Artist Colony at Old Lyme
April 25, 2023 - Grand Valley State University

This conversation features Florence Griswold Museum Curator, Amy Kurtz-Lansing, who will offer an illustrated presentation about life at the Lyme Art Colony and its role in American art.

Located on the Connecticut shoreline between New York and Boston, Old Lyme was the center of an artist colony based at the boardinghouse of Florence Griswold beginning in 1900. She nurtured the work of Tonalist and Impressionist artists who came to paint en plein air, or outdoors, to capture subjects that included venerable oak trees, quaint New England architecture, pastoral landscapes, and colorful gardens. Visited by artists such as Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, and Grand Rapids’s own Matthias Alten and Will Howe Foote, the colony offered an environment conducive to both work and play.