Walter Griffin

Walter Parsons Shaw Griffin (1861-1935)

(A Hartford Biography)

© Gary W. Knoble, 2014

Although not Hartford born, Walter Griffin had a significant impact on the Hartford art scene. As a student at the National Academy in New York, he met several of the young Hartford painters who remained life-long friends including Charles Noel and Montague Flagg, Robert Bolling Brandegee, and Charles Foster. He taught at The Hartford Art Society and Flagg’s Connecticut Art Students League and participated with Robert Bolling Brandegee in publishing the Farmington Magazine. He had a significant influence on Hartford’s Russell Cheney. Like William Gendney Bunce, he spent his adult life going back and forth to Europe, spending most of his time in France. He is widely respected for his heavily impastoed landscapes.

He was born January 14, 1861 in Portland, Maine, the son of Lydia Libby and Edward Souther Griffin. His father was a woodcarver, specializing in ship figureheads. His father was also an avid amateur painter and a member of a painting group who called themselves “the Brush’uns”. Griffin first studied art with his father and accompanied him on many painting excursion during his childhood.

Most sources say he entered the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Art in 1877. However, the records of the school show the year of his enrollment as 1880. His first teacher was Emil Otto Grundmann. He also took night classes in sculpture from Truman Bartlett. When he enrolled he gave a Paris address although there is no record of his having visited Paris before this time, (likely a case of youthful fantasy).

In 1885 Griffin enrolled in the National Academy of Design’s antique and life classes in New York City. (Many often-quoted sources show the date as 1882, but the records of the Academy show the date as 1885.) He first studied with Lemuel Wilmarth. At the Academy he met and became friends with Montague Flagg of Hartford, a teacher at the Academy. Probably through Flagg he became friendly with two other Hartford artists, Robert Bolling Brandegee and Charles Foster. He was also a friend of William Merritt Chase, Willard Metcalf, Emil Carlson, and Childe Hassam. He taught at Felix Adler’s Ethical Culture Society where he saved enough for a European trip.

In 1887 he made what appears to have been the first of his many trips to Europe to study in Paris. According to his friend Allen Butler Talcott he studied at the Academie Julian,( however, others say it was the Academie Colarossi), where he studied with Raphael Collin, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts where he studied with Jean-Paul Laurens. During his time in Paris he was strongly influenced by the Barbazon and Impressionist painters. He also became friends with Jean-Francois Millet, whom he greatly admired. He reportedly first met William Gedney Bunce in Hartford around 1889. In 1890 he was back in France living in Fleury. He returned to the US in 1894 to sell his paintings and quickly returned to France with the proceeds.

Apparently as a result of his many Hartford contacts, in 1897 he returned to Hartford to become the Director of the Hartford Museum Art School, (then known as The Art Society of Hartford and later The Hartford Art School), replacing James Wells Champney. Dawson Dawson Watson and Dwight Tryon had also been Directors of the school. Some sources say he was also a Director of the Atheneum Museum but, according to the Museum’s records, this appears to be erroneous. He established a studio in the Gas Company Building at 700 Main Street, just down the street from the Museum. He taught at the Art Society until 1905-06.

During his Hartford stay he was regularly in Farmington with his friends Brandegee and Foster. He collaborated with Brandegee on the short-lived Farmington Magazine, doing many illustrations for the magazine. He loved Farmington. In an article for the magazine he refers to Farmington as a favorite colony of artists from “Hartford, Boston, New York, and other cities”. He also referred to Farmington as, “The Barbazon of America”. Around 1900 he published a portfolio of “Farmington Sketches” featuring several landmarks of the picturesque town. According to an advertisement at the time, these portfolios could be found at the Farmington Drug Store for $2.00 or could be ordered from Griffin at 700 Main Street in Hartford.

Although not primarily a portrait painter, he painted a portrait of Bunce. Bunce, also not a portrait painter, returned the favor painting Griffin’s portrait that was later used as his National Academy portrait. He must have also taught at the Charles Noel Flagg’s Art Students League of Hartford for a while since James Britton in his diaries says he studied with Griffin at the “Old Art League” around 1900.

In 1897 he opened Griffin’s Summer Painting School in Quebec City. In 1899 he married Lillian Baynes who worked with him at the Quebec painting school. The Griffins ran this school until at least 1905.

In 1903 he participated in an exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum titled,

“Four of Connecticut’s Best Known Artists” which also included Talcott, Charles Noel Flagg, and Bunce. In 1905-06 he is listed as the Hartford Art Society’s only teacher with Louis Orr, the lithographer, as his assistant.

In 1904 he began summering in Old Lyme at the Florence Griswold House where he painted a panel in the dining room. He continued to spend the summers in Old Lyme until 1908 and exhibited in Old Lyme until 1917. The Griswold House archives contain many letters he wrote to Florence Griswold during these years. His Hartford friends, Henry Cook White, James McManus, and Talcott were also part of the Old Lyme group.

Griffin and his wife divorced in 1908. He never remarried and had no children.

He and William Singer painted on Monhegan Island and in 1909 they both moved to Norway where they remained until 1910. In 1911 he moved to Boigneville, France where he remained during the First World War. Sometime during this time he was arrested as a spy but was acquitted of the charge. 1912 he was elected an Associate of National Academy. In 1913 he spent time with Bunce in Venice, remaining in Europe until 1918.

James Britton’s diaries from 1919-1926 contain several entries mentioning Griffin who was then in New York off and on. Griffin tells Britton, “the dealers are all after his (Griffin’s ) work”. Britton describes him as, “gotten up rather smart. Fine overcoat, stick, spats, tape glasses, face purplish red – very distinguished”. They often gossiped about the Hartford painters when they met.

Griffin was elected to full membership in the National Academy in 1922.

He was in France off and on from 1923 to 1933. When asked by Britton, who never left the American Northeast, why he spent so much time in Europe Griffin responded, “By George Jimmy, I’ll tell you what it is, over there the stuff is so paintable.” “Griffin like paintable stuff”, observes Britton. In 1924, in the middle of prohibition, the painter John Noble, just back from France, tells Britton, “Griffin is still in Paris drinking like a fish.” He apparently also liked drinkable stuff.

In 1923, Griffin was painting in Cassis, a coastal town near Marseilles and met the Harford painter Russell Cheney. According to Cheney’s partner and biographer F. O. Mattheissen, Griffin took a great interest in Cheney’s work and had a strong influence on him, in spite of their very different styles of painting . In 1930, Cheney painted a splendid portrait of the two of them, from a 1923 photograph, sitting at a café table overlooking the harbor. Cheney says, “He’s a savage old feller, in spite of a friendly smile, and I wanted to get that in.”

In 1926 Griffin visited Matisse and discovered Contes, France, where he stayed for three years. For the next four years He continued to travel back and forth between France and the U.S..

He retired to his hometown, Portland, Maine, in 1933, living in a hotel apartment. He was a regular fixture about town, often painting en plein aire and visiting galleries and museums. He continued to paint until his death on May 18, 1935.

Cummings, Hildegard, “The Hartford Art Colony 1880-1900”, 1989, The Connecticut Gallery Inc.

Dearinger, David B. (Editor), “Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of The National Academy of Design Volume I, 1826-1925”, 2004, page 239

Gallery Systems, Powered by EmbARK Web Kiosk, Walter Griffin, Lyme Art Colony

“Walter Griffin 1861-1935) On Line Learning The Fox Chase Website

Kornhauser, Elizabeth M., “American Paintings Before 1945 in the Wadsworth Atheneum”, 1996, pg. 419-20

Matthiessen, F. O, “Russell Cheney 1881-1945, A Record of His Work”, Oxford University Press, 1947

Worley, Michael Preston, “Walter Griffin – Biography”, ASK/Art Website

The Cooley Gallery, “Through a Frosted Window”