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“Beauty should guide all who paint. What is the use of painting ugliness?”
—Edward Redfield

American Impressionist painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries often spurned the cities, living and working in the numerous art colonies that sprang up across the country. One of the best known of these colonies was born in 1898 along the banks of the Delaware River north of Philadelphia, centered in the picturesque village of New Hope, in Bucks County. The artists became known as the Pennsylvania Impressionists. The group played a dominant role in the American art world of the teens and twenties, won countless awards, and sat on numerous prestigious exhibition juries. Their work was celebrated for its freedom from European influence and was praised by the noted painter and critic Guy Pene du Bois as “our first truly national expression.”

Painting the Beautiful: American Impressionist Paintings from the Michener Art Museum Collection includes 25 works by approximately 15 of the Pennsylvania Impressionists, who were associated with a vigorous realism grounded in love of the land and embodying America’s populist, pioneer spirit. In describing Impressionist painting, the words “virile,” “force,” and “veracity” probably don’t come to mind. But these are the very words that were used by early 20th-century critics to describe the work of the Bucks County artists. For example, the bold, vigorous realism of Edward Redfield, generally acknowledged as the stylistic leader of this group, influenced several generations of Impressionist artists.

Redfield, who painted outdoors in every kind of weather, was even known to strap his canvas between trees during winter storms. While his practice of working directly in nature exemplifies the ideals of the movement, what most characterized Pennsylvania Impressionists was not a single, unified style, but rather the emergence of many mature, distinctive voices: Daniel Garber’s luminous, poetic renditions of the Bucks County woods; Fern Coppedge’s colorful village scenes; Robert Spencer’s Ashcan-influenced views of mills and tenements; John Folinsbee’s moody, expressionistic snowscapes; and William L. Lathrop’s deeply felt, evocative vistas.

The exhibition originates from the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Thanks to a recent major gift of 60 works from a prominent collector, the Michener holds the world’s most extensive public collection of Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings. The artworks are accompanied by the major publication Pennsylvania Impressionism, co-published by the Michener Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Press. The book is edited and principally authored by the curator, Brian H. Peterson. Peterson has more than 20 years of experience as a curator, critic, artist, and arts administrator in the Philadelphia area.