Scholars continually rediscover competent American artists who enjoyed successful careers at the turn of the century, but whose legacy has been lost over time. One of these, William Merritt Post, is the subject of a retrospective exhibition on view at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Connecticut, through February. The title of the show, William Merritt Post and the Art of the Country Stream, is derived from Posts fascination with the stream in a landscape, which he painted in a variety of subtly different styles.
Although many of the details of Posts life are sketchy, the guest curator of the exhibition, J. Leonard Benson, has diligently pieced together a good deal about his life and oeuvre. His research efforts were considerably aided by Frank and Martha Reinhold of Watertown, Connecticut, who in 1937 attended an auction of the artist’s effects and purchased most of the contents of his studio in nearby West Morris (now Bantam), Connecticut.
The Reinholds’ daughter Ann and her husband, Ted Tolman, have generously donated this collection to the Mattatuck Museum, a logical repository for the work of this local artist. Included in the donation are drawings, sketchbooks, small oil paintings, documents, and artists’ materials. For the exhibition they have been supplemented with loans from other public and private collections. Members of the artist’s family have also provided invaluable assistance.
Post first studied in New York City with the relatively unknown Samuel Frost Johnson (b. 1835) and quickly moved on to the Art Students League, where he worked with James Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917) in 1881 and 1882. Not long afterward he met the landscape painter Hugh Bolton Jones whose work made a lasting impression. Both men were attracted to tightly focused landscape scenes, particularly streams amid trees and meadows, and their primary goal was to capture light at different times of day and in different seasons.
By the mid-1880s Post’s work reflected the prevailing interest in Japanese prints and impressionism.
In the 1890s Posts paintings of country streams sold well enough to ensure him financial independence. He was an active member of the two watercolor clubs that had been established in New York City, and in 1909 his essay entitled “Sunsets in Watercolor” appeared in the art journal Palette and Bench. The following year Post was elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design in New York City.
He summered for the first time in Bethlehem, Connecticut, in 1908, and this influenced him to move his family to that state. In 1912 he purchased and began renovating Applewood, an old farmhouse in West Morris.
Post’s quiet and dreamy landscapes are not only evocative, but in their varied styles one can establish the chronology of his long career. This is particularly important, for, while the artist frequently signed his canvases, he dated only a small number of them. Some undated works can be tied to their exhibition titles as listed in the records maintained by the numerous institutions where he showed. In other cases the titles are too general, have changed, or are unknown. Benson has unlocked the door and provided us with a solid framework for assessing this interesting artist’s work.
