Oliver Dennett Grover

San Giorgio Maggiore, 1923

1923

In this gilt wood framed oil on canvas waterscape, American Impressionist artist Harry Hoffman depicts the last moments of a morning sunrise over a river in predominant hues of lavender, purple, pink and blue. The sky is reflected in the water below with a sandy brown beach and large green tree in the foreground. Harry Leslie Hoffman was born in Cressona, a small community in Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill Valley. His mother was an amateur artist who encouraged her son to pursue a career in the arts. In 1893, Hoffman entered the School of Art at Yale University and studied with John Ferguson Weir, the son of Robert Walter Weir. After graduation in 1897, Hoffman moved to New York to continue his studies at the Art Students League. He also traveled to Paris and took classes at the Académie Julien. In the summer of 1902, Hoffman attended the Lyme Summer School of Art, in the town of Old Lyme on the Connecticut coast. The school was headed by Frank Vincent Dumond and was located in a boarding house owned by Florence Griswold. The school eventually grew into an artists’ colony and a center for American Impressionism. When Hoffman first arrived as a student, he was not permitted to stay in the house which was designated for the professional artists only. However, his outgoing personality soon won him many friends at the colony. In 1905, Hoffman settled in Old Lyme and worked as a full member of the artist colony. He was particularly influenced by Willard Leroy Metcalf, an Impressionist also working in Old Lyme. Fellow artists later fondly recalled Hoffman’s antics at the Griswold house, which included playing the flute and banjo, tap-dancing, singing humorous songs, and performing magic tricks. In 1910, Hoffman married another Old Lyme artist named Beatrice Pope, and the couple had one child in 1921. Hoffman and his wife often escaped New England during the harsh winter months. In the winters of 1914 and 1915 he traveled to Savannah, Georgia with fellow Old Lyme artist William Chadwick...

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