Kalmia

Encouraged by his friend and fellow Impressionist Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf first arrived in Old Lyme in May of 1905 to spend the summer at Miss Florence Griswold’s boardinghouse. Kalmia depicts the mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) that blooms along the banks of the Lieutenant River each June. Metcalf was so pleased with Kalmia that he chose to exhibit it widely, starting in Old Lyme and continuing across America. Critics instantly recognized the painting’s significance: “Willard Metcalf is at his best in Kalmia,” one wrote, “with its flowering bushes at the side of a stream, the delicacy of the pink and white blossoms being caught with tenderness and feeling, the result being a picture having much of the poetry of nature.” The acclaim Metcalf received for the picture encouraged other painters to take up the Kalmia motif, making it a signature subject for what became the Lyme Art Colony, the birthplace of American Impressionism. This masterpiece is housed in the Florence Griswold Museum.