Guy Carleton Wiggins

(1883-1962)

A Winter's Day 20 x 24 1/8in (50.8 x 61.3cm)

Footnotes

Provenance
W.C. Harvey, Plainfield, New Jersey.
Sale, Sotheby's Arcade, New York, September 30, 1997, lot 265.
Dr. and Mrs. Robert H. Barter, Washington, D.C., (probably) acquired from the above.
Mrs. Joanne Barter West, Washington, D.C., by descent, 1999.
By descent to the present owners, 2020.

Though Guy Carleton Wiggins is best known for his impressionistic, snowy scenes of New York painted during the 1920s and 1930s, he is equally celebrated for his landscapes of the countryside of Lyme and Essex, Connecticut where he divided his time throughout his career. Wiggins' father was a resident of Old Lyme since 1915 and introduced him to the area in the early years of his childhood when the family made frequent trips to the colony. Wiggins also spent various summers in Old Lyme while living in New York, establishing an early connection with the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, for which he would eventually serve as president. By the 1920s, Wiggins divided his time between New York and Hamburg Cove, a charming area in Lyme Township, Connecticut where he made his primary residence on an old farm. In the present work, his characteristic depiction of snow fall and his plein-air approach to the subject imbues the scene with a sense of tranquility often conveyed in his snowy country landscapes. The present work is a splendid example of Wiggins' painterly technique and treatment of the snowy Connecticut landscape, painted with dynamic brushstrokes and a palette of bright whites, pastel greens, yellows, and reds. By 1937, Wiggins moved to Essex, Connecticut, where he founded the Guy Wiggins Art School as well as the Essex Painters Society. The Connecticut country-side remained conducive to his impressionist technique of painting and the pastoral of the landscape that appealed to him provided him with countless subjects.