In celebration of a recently acquired Childe Hassam painting, The Red Mill Cos Cob, the Historical Society presents an exhibit offering a view into Cos Cob at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and the role this town played in the development of American Art. Lost Landscape Revealed explores how Hassam, one of America’s foremost Impressionists, and fellow artists, including Elmer MacRae and Kerr Eby, captured the appearance of the waterfront community known as Cos Cob’s Lower Landing. Through paintings, photographs, and artifacts this one-time busy mercantile district will be brought to life.
January 16 - March 28, 2021
Member Preview Days: Wednesday-Friday January 13-15
“This is an exciting opportunity to debut an exceptional painting that speaks to the atmosphere and surroundings that attracted Hassam and many other noted artists to Cos Cob,” says Maggie Dimock, Historical Society Curator of Exhibitions and Collections. “Cos Cob was once at the center of Impressionism in America when Hassam, and other artists like John Henry Twachtman, Theodore Robinson and Elmer MacRae gathered at Holley House, now the Bush-Holley House, to paint and teach.”
Hassam’s The Red Mill, Cos Cob depicts a view across the Cos Cob Harbor toward the Palmer & Duff shipyard, which one stood on a peninsula in the Mianus River opposite the Holley boardinghouse. The “Red Mill” of Hassam’s title was not in fact a mill, but rather a large two-story building used by Palmer & Duff workers for sail making and ship carpentry. In its heyday in the mid 1800’s Palmer & Duff built commercial sailing vessels for transporting farm products to New York City. The exhibition features several artworks from the Historical Society’s collections presenting views of the same shipyard over time, painted by Cos Cob colony artist Elmer MacRae, as well as artworks by Hassam and others depicting other scenes from the Holley House and the Lower Landing.