CHILDE HASSAM AND THE RED MILL, COS COB
On the occasion of the acquisition of the Childe Hassam painting, Red Mill, Whirlwind designed an exhibition in collaboration with the GHS that conveyed the many historic features of a changing coast line.
On a late summer day in 1896, painter Childe Hassam (1859‒1935) left the Holley boardinghouse with easel, paints, brushes and canvas in hand. Crossing Strickland Road the artist headed south, skirting the old tide mill on the water’s edge. Passing a group of dilapidated waterfront warehouses, he settled on an empty stretch of waterfront overlooking the Cos Cob Harbor. From this spot Hassam had an unobstructed view of a cluster of shabby wooden buildings on the opposite shore, their faded red paint glowing brightly in the sun.
This collection of sheds and shops was the once-humming center of the Palmer & Duff shipyard, where for over 50 years shipbuilders worked on the sloops and schooners that dotted the harbor of the busy waterfront village of Cos Cob’s Lower Landing. The shipyard became the subject of Hassam’s painting The Red Mill, Cos Cob. It is one of a handful of canvases completed during Hassam’s initial stay at the Holley House, the first of many visits the artist would make between 1896 and 1918.
Despite his fondness for Cos Cob, Hassam saw the village through the romantic lens of an artist and a visitor to this waterfront community. Painted in rich colors with an energetic brush, The Red Mill, Cos Cob presents a relic of bygone New England waterfront industry scrubbed of its rough edges.
This intimate focus exhibition, drawn primarily from the Greenwich Historical Society’s museum and archival collections, invites visitors to take a closer look at the Lower Landing of Hassam’s era, a vibrant community with many stories to tell.
Client: Greenwich Historical Society
View GHS exhibit “Beautiful Work: The Art of Greenwich Gardens and Landscapes”
CHILDE HASSAM AND THE RED MILL, COS COB
On the occasion of the acquisition of the Childe Hassam painting, Red Mill, Whirlwind designed an exhibition in collaboration with the GHS that conveyed the many historic features of a changing coast line.
On a late summer day in 1896, painter Childe Hassam (1859‒1935) left the Holley boardinghouse with easel, paints, brushes and canvas in hand. Crossing Strickland Road the artist headed south, skirting the old tide mill on the water’s edge. Passing a group of dilapidated waterfront warehouses, he settled on an empty stretch of waterfront overlooking the Cos Cob Harbor. From this spot Hassam had an unobstructed view of a cluster of shabby wooden buildings on the opposite shore, their faded red paint glowing brightly in the sun.
This collection of sheds and shops was the once-humming center of the Palmer & Duff shipyard, where for over 50 years shipbuilders worked on the sloops and schooners that dotted the harbor of the busy waterfront village of Cos Cob’s Lower Landing. The shipyard became the subject of Hassam’s painting The Red Mill, Cos Cob. It is one of a handful of canvases completed during Hassam’s initial stay at the Holley House, the first of many visits the artist would make between 1896 and 1918.
Despite his fondness for Cos Cob, Hassam saw the village through the romantic lens of an artist and a visitor to this waterfront community. Painted in rich colors with an energetic brush, The Red Mill, Cos Cob presents a relic of bygone New England waterfront industry scrubbed of its rough edges.
This intimate focus exhibition, drawn primarily from the Greenwich Historical Society’s museum and archival collections, invites visitors to take a closer look at the Lower Landing of Hassam’s era, a vibrant community with many stories to tell.
Client: Greenwich Historical Society
View GHS exhibit “Beautiful Work: The Art of Greenwich Gardens and Landscapes”