Mountfort
Coolidge was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1888 and was a pupil
of Robert Henri's. In the early teens he travelled with his family
to Ogunquit, Maine, then already a thriving artist's community,
and became a student of Hamilton Faster Field's. He continued
to summer in Ogunquit for over 40 years, and was associated with
such artists as Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Niles Spencer, Marsden Hartley,
LIoyd Goodrich, Bernard Karfiol, and was often associated with
the flamboyant society painter Channing Hare, with whom he operated
a small antiques business.
The two men shared a home on Pine Hill North where among Hare's
household treasures was a not-so-housebroken but very handsome
black and white Belgian hare. OAA members Channing Hare and Mountfort
Coolidge, although respected and successful painters In their
own right, were identified more with the summer society life than
it's art colony by many artists and local residents. Close friends,
fellow artists and even business partners, the two men were synonymous
with glamour, flamboyance, and chic. Despite Hare's seeming preoccupation
with the gathering of interesting people for elaborate cocktail
parties, he was a brilliant society portrait painter who reportedly
commanded between $3,000 and $10,000 for a painting, top prices
in those times. His clients Included such noted Palm Beach and
New York socialites as Phyllis Rhinelander and'Alexander Woolcott,
comedienne Beatrice Lily, actress Florence Nash, and authors Booth
Tarkington and Kenneth Roberts.
More subdued than his partner, Coolidge spent most of his time
at work, either painting for shows at such prestigious New York
midtown galleries as the Kraushaar and Kleeman's or in the antique
shop.
Because of his association with some of the most progressive modern
painters of his day, the paintings of Mountfort Coolidge are more
than just representative paintings chronicling the landndscape
around him, they are expressions of the landscape as he experienced
it, as a series of geometric and organic shapes and forms, patterns
of color, and of images of the time in which he lived. Although
man is seldom depicted in the landscape, he has in many instances
left his mark upon it in the form of a dwelling, road, stonewall,
or sailboat on the horizon. In these paintings we find strong
European as well as American influences. 'I'he houses that are
simplified forms set in the landscape owe a debt to Cezanne, and
the coloring not onlv that of' the French impressionists but often
that of the Fauves.
Mountfort Coolidge painted tirelessly for several decades. He
became a member of the Ogunquit Art Association, exhibiting locally.
He also had several successful exhibitions in Paris, New York,
(Kraushaar Gallery, Boston (Margaret Brown Gallery), Palm Beach
(Society of the Four Arts), and elsewhere. He died in Ogunquit,
Maine, in 1954.
Mountfort
Coolidge painted plein air (outdoor) small canvas boards as studies
for his larger paintings and pastels. Working outdoors, in winter
as well as summer, sometimes in uncomfortable conditions, was
an American as well as French tradition. All
Mountford Coolidge paintings & pastels are from the estate
of Steven Hensel.
