Cos Cob Art Colony Revisited

Mention the Cos Cob Art Colony and one immediately thinks of Childe Hassam, Theodore Robinson, John H. Twachtman and J. Alden Weir, but there are other famous artists who were very much a part of the colony. In the Bruce Museum’s exhibition catalog, “The Ochtmans of Cos Cob”, curator Susan G. Larkin writes “Leonard and Mina Fonda Ochtman settled in Greenwich immediately after their marriage in 1891.  For the next eighty years, the Ochtmans would be central to the community’s cultural life. The Cos Cob Art Colony, the Greenwich Society of Artists, the Bruce Museum: all benefited from the Ochtmans’ involvement.  Their significance extends beyond Greenwich however. Leonard Ochtman was one of the most famous American landscape painters at the turn of the century.  Dorothy Ochtman’s (Dorothy is Leonard’s daughter) vibrant still lifes and intimate portraits convey the beauty of a vanished, self-contained world.”  We had been gathering material for an article on the Cos Cob Colony and coincidently  received an e-mail today from gallery owner Tom Pikul of Bantam Fine Arts in Bantam, Connecticut letting us know of his Leonard and Dorothy Ochtman paintings. Click here for details of the Leonard Ochtman paintings and here for Dorothy Ochtman.  To learn more about the Ochtmans, a must-read is Susan Larson’s book “The Cos Cob Art Colony: Impressionists on the Connecticut Shore” available at the Bruce Museum, The Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich, Amazon.com and many bookstores. For a direct link to the book at Amazon.com click here.  For the “Ochtmans of Cos Cob” exhibition catalog from the Bruce Museum, click here.