Weir Farm Visiting Artists 2005

September 12 through November 4, 2005

Opening Reception
September 15, 2005 5:30 - 7:00 pm

The Weir Farm Trust is pleased to return to the Housatonic Museum of Art with its 2005 Visiting Artists exhibition. It features five regional artists who have spent the past year exploring the bucolic setting of Weir Farm National Historic Site, located in the towns of Wilton and Ridgefield, CT. In its 14th year, the Visiting Artists Program is one component of the Weir Farm Trust’s Visual Artists Program. Through a rigorous application process, five regional artists are selected each year to create a cohesive body of work based on their personal experiences of Weir Farm. The site’s natural beauty and its extraordinary legacy of art history originated from J. Alden Weir, the American Impressionist painter who owned the farm from 1882 until his death in 1919. Used as a rural retreat from New York City, Weir and his colleagues such as Childe Hassam, John Twachtman, and John Singer Sargent, all who visited the farm often, were equally inspired by the exquisite landscape and tranquility that was manifest so strikingly in their paintings done at the farm.

The opening of the exhibition is September 15, 2005 from 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm and will include an artists’ discussion at 6:00 pm.  This is a opportunity to hear directly from the artists about their artwork and how it evolved over the past year during their visits to the site; each artist reacted differently to the landscape and history of Weir Farm, incorporating their own individual styles and mediums to create visual responses that when viewed as a group reveal the remarkable depth of subject matter. The five artists are Bob Keating, Rob Loebell, Jane Miller, and Eve Stockton from Connecticut, and Pat Brentano, from New Jersey.

The Weir Farm Trust was founded in 1989 as a non-profit arts organization that works in partnership with the National Park Service at the Weir Farm National Historic Site (designated in 1990), located in Wilton, Connecticut.  It is one of only two sites within the National Park System that focuses on American art.  Remarkably, the home, studio, farm buildings and landscape central to J. Alden Weir’s creative vision have survived intact, making it the finest remaining site associated with American Impressionism. 

Through innovative visual arts programs and community activities, the Weir Farm Trust serves to broaden awareness of the Site’s extraordinary legacy.  The mission is to promote public awareness of the Farm’s history and artistic tradition, facilitate its use by contemporary artists, provide educational opportunities, and preserve the Farm’s unique environment.

For more information about the Weir Farm Trust  and the Visual Artists Program please call 203-761-9945.

Chris, Eve Stockton (Artist) and Tony Kirk, Director of the Center for Contemporary Printmaking.