Summertime: Artists Outdoors

As is bound to happen when researching an artwork for our photo archives, I managed to veer off topic and stumbled upon a series of photographs in the Juley Collection that depict summer art classes at the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, MA. While many of the Juley photographs that feature studios and art schools are based in the New York area, photographers Peter and Paul Juley would also document art and artists in other parts of the country as well as those on summer retreats. The artist colonies at Woodstock and Taos were popular destinations, as were the summer art schools in New England and Maine.

Henry Hensche teaching at the Cape Cod School of Art, 1935

                           

The Cape Cod School of Art (pictured above) was founded by Charles Webster Hawthorne in 1898 and was inspired by the Impressionist concept of painting en plein air. It’s also noted as being the first American art school to teach outdoor figure painting. After the school's opening, Provincetown became a well known artist colony; the school is still in operation today, holding summer sessions every year.

Other photographs that I found are of Robert Brackman’s class taught Noank, CT, and classes held at the Ogunquit School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

Reminded of the arrival of the first official day of summer this week, I really enjoyed discovering these

images and many others in our photo archives

that feature artists enjoying the great outdoors.

- Rachel Brooks, Research and Scholars Center, American Art Museum