Greenwich resident and Master Artist Dmitri Wright will conduct a painting workshop on Sunday, October 19 at Greenwich Historical Society to show aspiring artists how the Cos Cob art colony Impressionists mastered their technique.
Dmitri Wright. Photo courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society
Participants will be able to step into the world of renowned American painters such as Childe Hassam, John Henry Twachtman, Elmer Livingston MacRae and J. Alden Weir who were members of the Cos Cob art colony in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Wright will instruct in the en plein air style which refers to ‘out in natural world,’ a technique many of these Impressionists used, particularly when they visited the Holley Boarding House. This painting style enabled the artists to capture their own unique views of the landscapes around them.
Workshop participants will have the opportunity to actively engage in the Impressionist technique by creating their own artwork and reliving the experience of the first Impressionists who were inspired by the Cos Cob landscape.
The workshop is held in connection with the Historical Society’s newly opened exhibition: The Holley Boarding House: Inspiring American Impressionism. Participants will provide their own materials and refreshments. For more information and to register, please visit the Historical Society website, or https://greenwichhistory.org/event/echoes-of-impressionism-painting-in-the-footsteps-of-the-cos-cob-masters/.
Instructor Dmitri Wright walks in the footsteps of a long line of American Impressionists. His mentor Samuel Brecher studied under Charles W. Hawthorne, founder of the Cape Cod Art School and a student of artist William Merritt Chase. Wright studied under Reuben Tam as a Max Beckman International Scholar at the Brooklyn Museum and, while attending Cooper Union, studied under Wolf Kahn and Will Barnet.
He has taught as the Master Artist/Instructor at Weir Farm National Historic Site for American Impressionists and taught Impressionism at the Silvermine Art School. Wright’s work embodies the representational method of integrating impressionist and expressionist schools with an influence rooted in classic art.
He is the current curator of Then and Now at the Cos Cob Library, featured in the 120th Anniversary of American Impressionism one-man pop-up show, and with plein air gear and Impressionist painting demonstrations on permanent display at Weir Farm.