Allen Butler Talcott (April 8, 1867 – June 1, 1908) was an American landscape painter. After studying art in Paris for three years atAcadémie Julian, he returned to the United States, becoming one of the first members of theOld Lyme Art Colony in Connecticut. His paintings, usually landscapes depicting the local scenery and often executeden plein air, were generallyBarbizon andTonalist, sometimes incorporating elements ofImpressionism. He was especially known and respected for his paintings of trees. After eight summers at Old Lyme, he died there at the age of 41.
Allen Butler Talcott was born on April 8, 1867, inHartford, Connecticut,[1] into an established and prominent New England family. His artistic inclinations were apparent at an early age, as he created sketches of teachers and fellow students in the margins of his grade school books.[2]
He attendedTrinity College in Hartford, receiving a diploma in 1890.[1] While there, he was a member of the Fraternity of Delta Psi (St. Anthony Hall).[3] His formal art education began at the Hartford Art Society, where he studied with painterDwight William Tryon.[4] He moved toManhattan while he studied for a short time at theArt Students League of New York. Then he attendedAcadémie Julian in Paris for three years, studying underJean-Paul Laurens andBenjamin Constant.[5] His work received its first artistic recognition during this period in France, as his paintings were exhibited at the 1893 and 1894Paris Salons.[6]
Talcott lived inArles in 1897, rentingVincent van Gogh's house, along withFrank DuMond.[5] He came home to Hartford, where he set up a studio, which he maintained for a few years.[6] He also returned to New York, joining a cooperative studio complex which had been established byHenry Ward Ranger. Ranger became friends with Talcott, as well as an influence.[2] Ranger was also founder of theOld Lyme Art Colony in Connecticut,[5] and Talcott became one of the first artists to join.[4] When he first arrived in 1901, he stayed atFlorence Griswold's boarding house,[6] which would later be turned intoan art museum. He worked in his New York City studio during the winters,[4] and spent his summers at Old Lyme for eight years, until his death there in 1908.[2]
Barbizon art was popular with artists in the U.S. during this period. Among Ranger and other Old Lyme artists, a variant,Tonalism, evolved in which the palette consisted of just a few muted colors.[7] Talcott had gained a fondness for FrenchImpressionism and was exposed to itsAmerican equivalent atCos Cob, Connecticut, in the late 1890s. There, artists such asChilde Hassam andJohn Henry Twachtman were developing the artistic style.[7] But Ranger and Tryon were stronger influences on Talcott, and his early paintings are primarily Barbizon and Tonalist[6] – landscapes in shades of brown, green and gold.[2]
Talcott bought an Old Lyme estate looking out upon theConnecticut River in 1903.[6] Around this time, Hassam was bringing Impressionism to the colony, and many of the artists including Talcott began moving in that direction.[5] He did not, however, fully adopt the principles of Impressionism, instead integrating certain aspects into his Tonalist paintings.[7] He retained the Tonalist interest in a unified set of colors, while incorporating the Impressionist concentration on the effects of light by lightening his palette.[4] While lighter than Ranger's, Talcott's colors were still subdued compared to those of the Impressionists.[7] The nature of his brushstrokes also changed, becoming more "flickery". In addition to Hassam, DuMond also influenced him artistically.[2]
Although he created some portraits, for example, of family members,[8] his subject matter consisted primarily oflandscapes, often depicting scenes in and around Old Lyme and along the Connecticut River. He was particularly fond of painting trees, and was known and respected for those paintings.[2][4]Charles Vezin, another artist in the colony, said of Talcott: "He loved and keenly appreciated nature, and his knowledge of all its phases was unusual.... His fellows conceded that no one was his peer in the knowledge of trees and how to paint them."[2] Talcott liked to worken plein air, creating oil sketches which he painted on wood panels. These sketches were often of high enough quality that they could be regarded as finished paintings,[2] and were "admired for their sense of immediacy and rich textures."[9]
In a review of a 1991 show of Talcott's work at theMattatuck Museum,The New York Times critic said that Talcott was "more talented than many of his contemporaries who went on to Impressionist fame".[5]
In 1905, Allen married Katherine Nash Agnew, daughter of New York physician Cornelius Rea Agnew, and they had a son, Agnew.[1][2] Talcott's uncles,John Butler Talcott andJames Talcott who together had established theAmerican Hosiery Company, were both patrons of his work and John was the founder, through a large endowment made in 1903, of theNew Britain Museum of American Art that has several of Talcott's paintings in their collection.[5][8]
Allen Butler Talcott's nephew was also an artist, American sculptor, author, and illustratorDudley Talcott.
Talcott died at his Old Lyme summer home on June 1, 1908, of aheart attack; he was 41 years old.[1][2]
Talcott's landscapes were the subject of a single solo show during his lifetime, atKraushaar Galleries in 1907; a review inThe New York Times noted Talcott's ability to combine "an uncommon sense of the structure and underlying skeleton of a landscape with a feeling for color."[10] Talcott exhibited regularly at various venues including theNational Academy of Design, thePennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, theSociety of American Artists,Wadsworth Atheneum, the Carnegie Institute, and the Old Lyme library, as well as other salons. Talcott was awarded asilver medal in 1904 at theSt. Louis Exposition.[5][6][11] He also won a medal at thePortland Exposition.[1] As part of its eightieth anniversary celebration in 1983, the New Britain Museum of American Art featured an exhibition of Talcott landscapes.[5]
His work is in the permanent collections of theMetropolitan Museum of Art,[12] theFlorence Griswold Museum,[13] theMattatuck Museum,[4] theNew Britain Museum of American Art, theLyman Allyn Art Museum, and theWorcester Art Museum.[14] Talcott was a member of theSalmagundi Club and theLotos Club, and has work included in the collection of the latter.[1]
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