For the past twenty years, Thomas Clark has been amassing a significant grouping of pre-1940 American Impressionist landscape paintings with more than 100 works in the collection. Considered one of the finest private collections of this genre in upstate New York, it is a testament to the enduring legacy of Impressionist painting in American art.

The collection comprises represen­tative examples from the last great generation of landscape painters who emerged both during and in the after­math of the American Impressionist movement (1880-1920). These artists were the students and/or sketching partners of the seminal figures in the development of Impressionism in America such as William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Willard L. Metcalf, John Henry Twachtman, and Robert Henri.

The American painters represented in this collection were primarily concerned with capturing the effects of light, color, and atmosphere achieved by painting directly from nature – out-of-doors – rather than in the studio. Though not as well known as their Impressionist predecessors, this generation of landscape paint­ers flourished in areas such Old Lyme, Connecticut; Cape Ann, Massachusetts; New Hope, Pennsylvania; and Woodstock, New York, as well as areas of Vermont and California. The works in the Clark Collec­tion offer a comprehensive treatment of these regional schools of Impressionist activity in America.

Sizty-four paintings by forty-seven artists are featured in the exhibition. The landscapes selected vary in scenic subject matter from snow-filled views to sun-drenched hillsides and waterways, as well as har­bor scenes and cityscapes.

The exhibition is curated by Erin B. Coe, chief curator and deputy director of The Hyde Collection and will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with a foreword by the collector and an essay by the curator.