Pride of Place: Works from the Estate of Sydney F. Martin

Exhibited

"The Painterly Voice: Bucks County's Fertile Ground," James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, October 22, 2011-April 1, 2012.

Literature

Brian H. Peterson, Pennsylvania Impressionism, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2002, no. 16, p. 106 (illustrated).
James M. Alterman, New Hope for American Art, Jim’s of Lambertville, Lambertville, 2005, p. 89 (illustrated).

Note

Morgan Colt was born in Summit, New Jersey on September 11, 1876. A student at the School of Architecture of Columbia University, the artist joined a New York firm upon graduation, but eventually gave up architecture to focus on painting instead, thus breaking free from "clients' tastes or whimsies". He established himself at Phillips’ Mill, and studied closely with William L. Lathrop, the founding member of the New Hope School, who became his close friend. Although he successfully juggled painting, design, and crafts, Colt is best remembered today for his Impressionistic landscapes, which he always composed in the studio due to a persistent heart condition that prevented him from being outdoors too long. He died suddenly on April 12, 1926 from a heart attack, leaving behind an unattended corpus of paintings - a large portion of which were destroyed by the new inhabitants of Colt's house, thus ensuring that every one of their reappearances on the market is a notable event.

The present work is arguably one of Colt's most dazzling compositions, and the largest canvas to ever come to market. Well-balanced and executed in the artist's signature style of short, rapid brushstrokes and a bright, refreshing palette, the painting depicts an expansive view of one of Bucks County's many valleys, as seen from the top of a hill. The vista is dramatically framed by two poplar trees on either side of the canvas, which act as curtains parting to reveal the bucolic and idyllic landscape. A country road plunges into the canvas, and guides our eye into the heart of the valley where one notices the picturesque presence of a single cottage, from which emerges an elegant and stylized blue plume of smoke, a distinct trait in Colt’s paintings. Far away, on the horizon and past a dense grove, sits a small village dominated by a steeple (Stockton?), a subtle indication that this formidable fairyland is inhabited. Arranged in three distinct layers, this early work prefigures Garber’s most famous landscapes, with a distinct sense of perspective and depth, however. The painting beautifully captures the subtle effects of the sun on the landscape, a happy marriage between pale blue tones and more lime-green hues which convey the tranquility and serenity of the locale – an invitation to rejoice in Nature's company as a nod to the contemporary events of that year 1917, which marked America’s entry into the First World War.