Hill-Stead Museum
Encyclopedia
Hill-Stead Museum, also known as Hill-Stead, is a Colonial Revival house and art museum in Farmington, Connecticut
, USA. It is best known for its French Impressionist masterpieces, architecture, and stately grounds.
Hill-Stead was created on 250 acres (1 km²) as a country estate for wealthy industrialist Alfred Atmore Pope
, to the designs of his daughter Theodate Pope Riddle
. Edgerton Swartout of the renowned architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White
translated her design into a working site plan, and construction took place over the period of 1898 to 1901. Theodate inherited the house after her parents deaths, and prior to her own passing in 1946 willed Hill-Stead Museum as a memorial to her parents and "for the benefit and enjoyment of the public". She directed that both the house and its contents remain intact, not to be moved, lent, or sold.
Currently, Hill-Stead comprises 152 acre (0.61512272 km²), the balance having been sold off during the first years of the museum's operation. Buildings which remain part of the property include the Pope-Riddle House itself (a large 33000 square feet (3,065.8 m²) mansion built in the Colonial Revival style and once described as "a great new house on a hilltop" by novelist and occasional guest Henry James
); an 18th-century farm house; a carriage garage with an Arts and Crafts theater; a barn and additional farm buildings.
Today, 19 rooms of the house are open to visitors. Remaining as it was at the time of Theodate's death, the house is extensively furnished with paintings, prints, objets d'art, and fine furniture and rugs. Highlights of the collection include major paintings by Eugène Carrière
, Mary Cassatt
, Edgar Degas
, Édouard Manet
, Claude Monet
and James McNeill Whistler
; prints including three engravings by Albrecht Dürer
(Melencolia I, 1514), 17 copper plate etchings and lithographs by James McNeill Whistler
, and Japanese woodblock prints by artists Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Hiroshige and Kitagawa Utamaro; eight bronze sculptures by Antoine-Louis Barye
; about 13,000 letters and postcards including correspondence from Mary Cassatt
, Henry James
and James McNeill Whistler
; and about 2,500 photographs, including six of Gertrude Käsebier
's art photographs.
Hill-Stead's grounds were originally designed in consultation with landscape architect
Warren H. Manning
and feature a broad lawn with ha-ha and slate walkway; artificial pond; and formal, octagonal flower garden. Around 1920, landscape gardener Beatrix Farrand
redesigned the estate's Sunken Garden (1 acre) at Theodate's request. Due to the wartime labor shortage experienced during the 1940s, the garden grassed over leaving only the summerhouse in place. Though it was replanted in time, it was not until the 1980s that the Sunken Garden was restored to exhibit Farrand's original plan.
Farmington, Connecticut
Farmington is a town located in Hartford County in the Farmington Valley area of central Connecticut in the United States. The population was 25,340 at the 2010 census. It is home to the world headquarters of several large corporations including Carrier Corporation, Otis Elevator Company, and Carvel...
, USA. It is best known for its French Impressionist masterpieces, architecture, and stately grounds.
House and museum
Alfred Atmore Pope
Alfred Atmore Pope was an American industrialist and art collector. He was the father of Theodate Pope Riddle, a noted American architect.-Family background:...
, to the designs of his daughter Theodate Pope Riddle
Theodate Pope Riddle
Theodate Pope Riddle was an American architect. She was one of the first American women architects as well as a survivor of the Lusitania.-Life:...
. Edgerton Swartout of the renowned architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White
McKim, Mead, and White
McKim, Mead & White was a prominent American architectural firm at the turn of the twentieth century and in the history of American architecture. The firm's founding partners were Charles Follen McKim , William Rutherford Mead and Stanford White...
translated her design into a working site plan, and construction took place over the period of 1898 to 1901. Theodate inherited the house after her parents deaths, and prior to her own passing in 1946 willed Hill-Stead Museum as a memorial to her parents and "for the benefit and enjoyment of the public". She directed that both the house and its contents remain intact, not to be moved, lent, or sold.
Currently, Hill-Stead comprises 152 acre (0.61512272 km²), the balance having been sold off during the first years of the museum's operation. Buildings which remain part of the property include the Pope-Riddle House itself (a large 33000 square feet (3,065.8 m²) mansion built in the Colonial Revival style and once described as "a great new house on a hilltop" by novelist and occasional guest Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
); an 18th-century farm house; a carriage garage with an Arts and Crafts theater; a barn and additional farm buildings.
Today, 19 rooms of the house are open to visitors. Remaining as it was at the time of Theodate's death, the house is extensively furnished with paintings, prints, objets d'art, and fine furniture and rugs. Highlights of the collection include major paintings by Eugène Carrière
Eugène Carrière
Eugène Anatole Carrière was a French Symbolist artist of the Fin de siècle period. His work is best known for its brown monochrome palette. He was a close friend of the sculptor Rodin and his work influenced Picasso...
, Mary Cassatt
Mary Cassatt
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists...
, Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
, Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
, Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
and James McNeill Whistler
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
; prints including three engravings by Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
(Melencolia I, 1514), 17 copper plate etchings and lithographs by James McNeill Whistler
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
, and Japanese woodblock prints by artists Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Hiroshige and Kitagawa Utamaro; eight bronze sculptures by Antoine-Louis Barye
Antoine-Louis Barye
Antoine-Louis Barye was a French sculptor most famous for his work as an animalier, a sculptor of animals.-Biography:Born in Paris, Barye began his career as a goldsmith, like many sculptors of the Romantic Period...
; about 13,000 letters and postcards including correspondence from Mary Cassatt
Mary Cassatt
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists...
, Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
and James McNeill Whistler
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
; and about 2,500 photographs, including six of Gertrude Käsebier
Gertrude Käsebier
Gertrude Käsebier was one of the most influential American photographers of the early 20th century. She was known for her evocative images of motherhood, her powerful portraits of Native Americans and her promotion of photography as a career for women.-Early life :Käsebier was born Gertrude...
's art photographs.
Hill-Stead's grounds were originally designed in consultation with landscape architect
Landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....
Warren H. Manning
Warren H. Manning
Warren Henry Manning was an influential American landscape designer and promoter of the informal and naturalistic “wild garden” approach to garden design...
and feature a broad lawn with ha-ha and slate walkway; artificial pond; and formal, octagonal flower garden. Around 1920, landscape gardener Beatrix Farrand
Beatrix Farrand
Beatrix Jones Farrand was a landscape gardener and landscape architect in the United States. Her career included commissions to design the gardens for private residences, estates and country homes, public parks, botanic gardens, college campuses, and the White House.Farrand was one of the founding...
redesigned the estate's Sunken Garden (1 acre) at Theodate's request. Due to the wartime labor shortage experienced during the 1940s, the garden grassed over leaving only the summerhouse in place. Though it was replanted in time, it was not until the 1980s that the Sunken Garden was restored to exhibit Farrand's original plan.