The northwest hills of Connecticut have attracted and inspired artists for more than two centuries. More than 250 professionally trained artists worked here before 1940. Some arrived with the development of the tourism industry in 19th century Connecticut. Others came with the summer residents escaping the cities at the turn of the 20th century. To a greater extent than in the art colonies elsewhere in the northeastern United States, the artists of Connecticut's northwest hills bought homes and became full time residents.

Right: Robert Nisbet, Litchfield Hills
(Private Collection)

Artists in the area painted portraits, genre scenes and still lifes; prominent sculptors, illustrators, print-makers and mural painters were among the resident artists. But the fundamental story of the artists in northwest Connecticut is about the landscape. The landscape paintings reveal American values and experience, as they were reflected in the evolving image of the local countryside in the 19th century.

Left: Alexander Theobald Van Laer, Autumn Landscape (Collection of Mattatuck Historical Society)

The paintings of northwest Connecticut reveal aspects of the local landscape before the transformation of modern life after World War II. They depict rivers and waterfalls before the construction of power systems and reservoirs, village centers before the arrival of automobiles and modern utilities, and social gatherings in backyard gardens before the popularization of commercial entertainments. They also reflect the values the artists brought to their search for scenery in Connecticut: artists initially recorded this landscape as evidence of a spiritual experience, and later as an opportunity for nostalgic retreat or social privilege.

Right: F. Luis Mora, The Toy Sailboat
(Private Collection)