Icebound

1909

Willard Metcalf (American, 1858–1925)

Icebound is part of a series of painings that WIllard Metcalf completed in the artist colony of Cornish, New Hampshire, during repeated visits in the winter months between the years 1909 and 1920. Specializing in landscape, Metcalf was greatly inspired by Impressionism, yet in this painting, he strayed from the pastel colors of that style and adopted an earthy palette with rich, russet tones. The unconventional look across, rather than along, Blow-Me-Down Brook limits the perspective, forcing the viewer to look down the banks of the brook to the clear, ice-covered water. Painted en plein air in the Cornish wilderness, the winter scenes of this series were some of Metcalf’s most celebrated and critically praised works.

Status: On View, Gallery 171
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Willard LeRoy Metcalf
Title: Icebound
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1909
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed lower left: W. L. Metcalf 1909 Signed W. L. Metcalf, 1909
Dimensions: 73.7 × 66.4 cm (29 × 26 1/8 in.)
Credit Line: Walter H. Schulze Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 1910.311

Judith A. Barter, et al., The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 2011), cat. 67.

Milwaukee Art Institute, Exhibition of Forty Paintings presented to the Art Institute of Chicago by the Friends of American Art, Mar. 1–29, 1925, cat.26.
California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Exhibition of Paintings: Collection of the Friends of American Art lent by the Art Institute of Chicago, June 26 – July 26, 1926, no. 17.
Ohio, Mansfield Art Center, The American Landscape, Mar. 8–Apr. 5, 1981, cat. 30.
Hanover, New Hampshire, Hood Museum of Art, Winter’s Promise: Willard Metcalf in Cornish, New Hamshire, 1909–1920, Jan. 9–Mar. 14, 1999.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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