Greenwich Historical Society Opens New Exhibition

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Deborah Pierce Bonnell
Deborah Pierce Bonnell

The Greenwich Historical Society will present “In Their Footsteps – Deborah Pierce Bonnell Paints Weir Farm” at the Storehouse Gallery Museum Shop from Feb. 1 through 28. The exhibition will feature works painted by Bonnell as a 2016 artist-in-residence at Weir Farm. The public is invited to attend an opening reception on Wednesday, Feb. 1, from 6 to 8 p.m., at the Greenwich Historical Society.

Bonnell first became interested in American Impressionism as a docent at Bush-Holley Historic Site, where she studied and lectured on Cos Cob art colony history. Artist J. Alden Weir painted in Cos Cob and later settled with his family at Weir Farm, in Branchville (Wilton), his home for thirty-plus years. Now a National Historic Site, Weir Farm was a setting, like Cos Cob, that American Impressionists loved and painted frequently. Weir’s circle of friends, noted American artists John Twachtman, Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent and Albert Pinkham Ryder, often visited and drew inspiration from the farm’s bucolic vistas, many of which remain intact today.

Landscape painting by Deborah Pierce Bonnell
Landscape painting by Deborah Pierce Bonnell

Bonnell, as artist-in-residence in September 2016, was able to spend three weeks exploring the very same paths, meadows and woods that these prominent artists walked a century ago. Using oil on canvas, encaustic on panel, watercolor on paper and even iPad digital paintings, she captured her own impressions. Says Bonnell, “As a landscape painter, I was able to immerse myself, not only in the beauty of the place, but in being removed from our hectic, modern sense of time and to imagine what it must have been like there at the turn of the twentieth century. I have come full circle. By working on the same ground as these artists whom I have come to love, I have connected on even more levels.”

All paintings on view will be available for purchase. Admission is free. RSVP to shealy@greenwichhistory.org with the number in your party. The Greenwich Historical Society is located at 39 Strickland Rd.

 

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