New Mexico Art Tells its History

Zuni Planting Scene

Zuni Planting Scene, 1882
Willard Leroy Metcalf (American, 1858 - 1925)
gouache on paper, 13 5/8 x 15 1/2 in. (34.6 x 39.4 cm)
Museum acquisition, 1965
1880.23D


Willard Metcalf was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, attended local public schools, apprenticed to a wood engraver, and studied landscape painting with a private teacher. He attended the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and life classes at Lowell Institute. 

Metcalf worked and travelled in the Southwest, his ethnological illustrations of the Zuni Indians appearing in both “Century Magazine" and "Harper's Magazine" in 1882-83. His travels to France introduced him to traditional styles of painting until he visited Giverny, the home of Impressionist painter Claude Monet. Returning to New England, his interest in Impressionism led him to become one of the founders of The Ten, a group of Boston and New York painters pioneering and promoting that style.

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