Willard Metcalf stayed in France for five years, initially studying at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1883-1884, and later traveling throughout the French countryside to paint in the artists’ colonies of Grez-sur-Loing and Giverny. The village of Grez-sur-Loing, located south of Paris, was visited by Metcalf in 1884-1885, and was a popular spot for American, British, and Scandinavian painters. Like many of those inspired by the region’s proximity to Fontainebleau, where the Barbizon style of landscape painting arose, Metcalf’s time at Grez resulted in imagery of peasant life and a muted, atmospheric quality of light, facets seen in Goose Girl (No. 2). Dated 1886 and inscribed Paris, the painting was likely begun during his stay and completed once he returned to the capital.

While abroad, Metcalf sent work home for exhibition, and Goose Girl (No. 2) was shown at the Ninth Exhibition of the Society of American Artists in New York in the spring of 1887. Two years later, he opened a solo exhibition at the St. Botolph Club in Boston, in which Goose Girl (No. 2) was also featured.

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In 1890, Metcalf moved to New York and began teaching at the Art Students League and at the Cooper Institute, all the while continuing with his illustration work. In the years following his return from Europe and up to the turn of the century, there were periods of professional struggle as he tried to work out a new direction in his painting. A landscape painter at heart, he eventually found his chosen subjects in his journeys throughout New England, arriving in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1895, heading up to Walpole, Maine, around 1903-1904, and down the New England coast again to Old Lyme, Connecticut, in 1903 and from 1905-1907. He also painted in Cornish, New Hampshire, from 1909 to 1911. During his travels, Metcalf remained active in the New York art community and in 1897 was instrumental in founding the Ten American Painters.

Around 1905, Metcalf experienced a rebirth in the appreciation of his work and over the ensuing years achieved financial and critical success by adapting an impressionist technique and high-keyed palette to the depictions of his native country, but did so not by copying a master’s hand but rather by transforming it into a style all his own. He continued to show his work in solo and group exhibitions up until his death in 1925. Today his work is in dozens of museums across the country, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, the Seattle Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Hirschorn Museum in Washington, DC, which has Sunset at Grez, a lovely example of his talents translating the French landscape, in its permanent collection. 

Provenance:

Miss Laura Sears, Boston, 1887

Metropolitan Gallery, New York

Judge Gromer, New Rochelle, New York

Estate of Judge Gromer to family by descent

Private collection, Houston, Texas

Lagakos-Turak Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

To private collection, Villanova, Pennsylvania, by 1998

Labels:

1. (handwritten label on portion of original stretchers) Miss Sears / 32 Gloucester St. / Boston, Mass.
2. (handwritten label on portion of original crossbar) #8 / SYN
3. (on portion of original stretchers) Exhibition, Soc. (?) Artists 1887 / Title, The Goose Girl / Artist, Willard L. Metcalf / Owner, (blank) Price, $2500
4. (handwritten label on portion of original stretchers) The Goose Girl / by / Willard L. Metcalf / Signed + Dated Paris 1886 / Exhibited Boston Society / Of Fine Arts 1887 / Collection Laura Sears / 32 x 32 inches
5. (on foam core backing) Spanierman Gallery, New York, New York / Willard Metcalf / “The Goose Girl” / Oil on Canvas / Size: 33 ¼ x 33 ½ inches / Signed lower right, WL Metcalf 1885 (sic) / SN 90-C 61
6. (on foam core backing) Lagakos-Turak Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
7. (on foam core backing) Spanierman Gallery, LLC, New York, New York / Exhibition / Willard Metcalf; Yankee Impressionist / May 8 – July 12, 2003 / Cat. #8

Literature:

Willard Metcalf (1858-1925): Yankee Impressionist (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2003), illus. p. .83

Exhibitions:

1. Ninth Exhibition, Society of American Artists, New York, New York, April 25 – May 21, 1887, no. 96
2. Exhibition of Paintings by W. L. Metcalf, St. Botolph Club, Boston, Massachusetts, March 18 – April 1, 1889, no. 28
3. Exhibition of Paintings by W. L. Metcalf, Rowland’s Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, early-mid April, 1889, no. 28
4. Paintings by Willard L. Metcalf, J. Eastman Chase Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, January 1891
5. Willard Metcalf (1858-1925): Yankee Impressionist, Spanierman Gallery, New York, New York, May 8 – June 28, 2003, no. 8