Early model Some art colonies are organized and planned, while others arise because some artists like to congregate, finding fellowship and inspiration—and constructive competition—in the company of other artists. The
American Academy in Rome, founded in 1894 originally as the American School of Architecture, which in the following year joined with the
American School of Classical Studies, is often cited as the early model for what would become the modern arts and humanities colony. Its well-funded, well-organized campus, and extensive program of fellowships, were soon replicated by early 20th-century artist colonies and their wealthy benefactors.
Northeast United States New Hampshire The
MacDowell Colony in Peterborough was founded in 1907 by composer
Edward MacDowell and his wife,
Marian. MacDowell was inspired by the American Academy in Rome, and its mission to provide American artists with a home base at the centre of classical traditions and primary sources. MacDowell, who was a trustee of the American Academy, believed that a rural setting, free from distractions, would prove to be creatively valuable to artists. He also believed that discussions among working artists, architects and composers would enrich their work. North Conway was an early Art Colony promoted by Benjamin Champney (1817-1907). In the early 1800's over four hundred artist traveled to the White Mountains painting the Romantic American Landscape in response to the Industrial Revolution. Painting the America they desired, not the America they were experiencing in the cities along the Eastern Seaboard.
New York , Thomas and
Wilhelmina Weber Furlong of the
Art Students League of New York named their private summer residence the
Golden Heart Farm art colony when they opened it in the summer of 1921. Located in upstate New York on Lake George, the colony and its artists in residence were at the center of the American
modernist movement as important artists from Manhattan traveled to Golden Heart Farm to escape the city and study with the couple. Another famous colony,
Yaddo in Saratoga Springs was founded soon after.
Spencer Trask and his wife
Katrina Trask conceived the idea of Yaddo in 1900, but the first residency program for artists did not formally initiate until 1926. The
Woodstock Art Colony in the town of the same name began as two colonies. Originally known as
Byrdcliffe, it was founded in 1902 by
Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead,
Hervey White, and
Bolton Brown. Two years later, Hervey White renamed it the
Maverick Colony, after seceding from Byrdcliffe in 1904. The town of Woodstock remains an active center of art galleries, music, and theatrical performances. The
Roycroft community was an influential
Arts and Crafts art colony that included both artisans and artists. Founded by
Elbert Hubbard in 1895, in the village of East Aurora, New York, near Buffalo its artisans were influential on the development of early 20th-century American furniture, books, lamps and metalwork. The colony drew from the Saturday Sketch Club for many of its artists, as the club was located near a cabin used by Buffalo art students who specialized in outdoor oil painting. In 1973,
Edna St. Vincent Millay's sister Norma created the
Millay Colony for the Arts at the historic site of
Steepletop in
Austerlitz. By the early 1970s,
East Hampton had developed a reputation as a vibrant artists' colony. A growing community of unconventional and experimental artists, writers, and performers established seasonal residences and shared spaces, fostering a bohemian atmosphere. The art school attracted other artists, and expanded the colony, which led to the foundation of the
Provincetown Art Association. By 1916, a
Boston Globe headline reported the "Biggest Art Colony in the World at Provincetown."
Rhode Island The
Fort Thunder art commune was located in a warehouse on the second floor of a pre-Civil War former textile factory in the
Olneyville district of
Providence, Rhode Island. Started by artists and musicians
Mat Brinkman and
Brian Chippendale in 1995 and would be demolished to create a parking lot for a
Shaw's grocery store and a
Staples in 2002.
Southern United States Florida In
Delray Beach, Florida, a seasonal
Artists and Writers Colony existed during the winter months from the mid-1920s until the early 1950s. The Delray Beach enclave was noted for attracting many famous
cartoonists of the era.
Maryland In Nottingham, the Mid-Atlantic Plein Aire Company, most notable for the involvement of artist William David Simmons, remains active. Now known as the Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association (MAPAPA), its mission remains the same: to educate and expose local artists and the general public with classical painting traditions.
Midwestern United States Michigan in
Saugatuck, Michigan The
Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists' Residency was founded in Saugatuck in 1910 by Frederick Fursman and Walter Marshall Clute, both faculty from the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Fursman and Clute's vision was to create a respite where faculty and students could immerse themselves completely in artmaking, surrounded by a supportive community of artists and an inspired landscape of natural dunes, woods and water.
Western United States Arizona , a copper-mining town that later attracted artists The desert town of
Sedona, Arizona, became a Southwest artists' colony in the mid-20th century.
Dadaist
Max Ernst and
Surrealist Dorothea Tanning arrived from New York in the late 1940s, when the town was populated by less than 500 ranchers, orchard workers, merchants, and small Native American communities. Amid the Wild West setting, Ernst built a small cottage by hand in Brewer Road, and he and Tanning hosted intellectuals and European artists such as
Henri Cartier-Bresson and
Yves Tanguy. Sedona proved an inspiration for the artists, and for Ernst—who compiled his book
Beyond Painting and completed his sculptural masterpiece
Capricorn while living there. The environment also inspired Egyptian sculptor Nassan Gobran to move there from Boston and become head of the art department at
Verde Valley School. In Southern Arizona in the early and mid-twentieth century, the Historic
Fort Lowell enclave outside of
Tucson, Arizona, became an artistic epicenter. The adobe ruins of the abandoned nineteenth century
United States Cavalry fort had been adapted by
Mexican-Americans into a small village called "El Fuerte." During the 1920s, 30s and 40s, artists, writers and intellectuals, attracted by the rural elegance and stark landscape of the
Sonoran Desert, and romanticism of the
adobe ruins began buying, redesigning and building homes in this small community. Notable artists included Dutch-born artist
Charles Bolsius,
Black Mountain College instructor and photographer
Hazel Larson Archer, architectural designer and painter
Veronica Hughart, early modernist
Jack Maul, French writers and artists
René Cheruy and
Germaine Cheruy, and noted anthropologists
Edward H. Spicer and
Rosamond Spicer The small historic town of
Jerome, Arizona was once a thriving copper mining town of 15,000. When the mining company
Phelps Dodge closed the United Verde Mine and its related operations in 1953, the number of residents plummeted to 100. To prevent Jerome from disappearing entirely, the remaining residents turned to tourism and retail. To further encourage tourism, the residents sought
National Historic Landmark status, which the federal government granted in 1967. Today, by sponsoring music festivals, historic-homes tours, celebrations, and races, the community succeeded in attracting visitors and new businesses, which in the twenty-first century include art galleries, working public studios, craft stores, wineries, coffee houses, and restaurants. Many residents are full-time artists, writers, and musicians.
California Hall in 1907 California.
James Franklin Devendorf was one of the founders of the
Carmel Arts and Crafts Club to support artistic works. The artists at
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California coalesced in 1905 and incorporated their art gallery and meeting rooms a year later as the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club. They staged annual and special exhibitions, which attracted distinguished visiting artists from across the country, and provided professional instruction in painting, sculpture, and crafts. At the urging of his former student
Jennie V. Cannon,
William Merritt Chase was persuaded to teach his last summer school here in 1914. Between 1919 and ca.1948 it was the largest art colony on the Pacific Coast of the United States. In 1927, the
Carmel Art Association replaced the Arts and Crafts Club and thrives today as the nexus of for the art community on the Peninsula of
Monterey, California and
Big Sur. The Carmel Art Institute was established in 1938, and included among its instructors
Armin Hansen and
Paul Dougherty.
John Cunningham began at the Institute when he helped teach a painting class for Hansen when he fell ill. In 1940, Hansen and the Whitman transferred ownership of the institute to Cunningham and his wife.
New Mexico in
Santa Fe, New Mexico in the early 20th century, The
Taos art colony in
Taos, New Mexico is an example of more organic development. The semi-desert landscape, clear skies and stunning light, and the cultural richness of both Hispanic and Pueblo Indian cultures in and around Taos attracted many artists throughout the 20th century. Joseph Henry Sharp visited Taos on an 1883 sketching trip and later shared his enthusiasm for the area while studying in Paris with artists Bert G. Phillips and Ernest L. Blumenschein. As a result of a broken wagon wheel while en route to Mexico on September 3, 1898, the two artists stayed in the Taos area instead. Back in Paris, Blumenschein met Eangar I. Couse and told him of Taos. Oscar E. Berninghaus and Herbert Dunton joined the Taos artists,comprising the "Founding" group of six. On July 1, 1915, the Taos Society of Artists held its first meeting. In 1916 Mabel Dodge, the New York socialite, and her husband, artist Maurice Sterne, moved to Taos, where Mabel started Taos' literary colony and recruited many artists to relocate there. Georgia O’Keeffe first visited Taos in 1929, visited the area every summer, and moved permanently to Abiquiu, New Mexico in 1946. Other famous artists who frequented Taos are Ansel Adams and D.H. Lawrence.Once artists began settling and working in Taos, others came,
art galleries and museums were opened and the area became an artistic center—though not a formal, funded art colony providing artists with aid, as Yaddo and MacDowell do. == North America ==