The Cornish Colony
Eric Pape, Masque Given in Cornish, NH, in Honor of Saint-Gaudens
Private Collection
The Cornish Colony was a community of artists and creative individuals founded in 1885 by a lawyer from New York named Charles Cotesworth Beaman. He soon convinced his friend Augustus Saint-Gaudens, one of the premier sculptors of the day, to rent a summer home and studio in Cornish, New Hampshire. After Saint-Gaudens made Cornish his summer residence, many of his friends and colleagues followed him to Cornish, and informally created the Cornish Colony. Despite its name, the Colony quickly overflowed the boundaries of Cornish and went on to also include the towns of Windsor, Vermont, and Plainfield, New Hampshire.
A wide variety of individuals, from artists to poets to politicians, called Cornish home for at least part of the year, including painters Thomas and Maria Dewing, Maxfield Parrish, Kenyon Cox, Henry Fuller, Willard Metcalf, Henry and Edith Prellwitz; sculptors William Zorach, Paul Manship, Herbert Adams, James Earle Fraser, Frances Grimes and Louis St. Gaudens; writers Winston Churchill, Witter Bynner, Maud Howe Elliott, Florence Scovel Shinn and Louise Saunders; actors John Blair, Ethel Barrymore, and Marie Dressler; composers Arthur Whiting and Walter Damrosch; dancer Isadora Duncan; architect Charles Platt; and other notable figures, including President Woodrow Wilson, Judge Learned Hand, and Ernest Harold Baynes.
The Colony lost momentum after World War I, and ceased to be an influential colony by 1930. Today, there is no ‘art colony’ to speak of, but a thriving artistic community continues, represented by the Cornish Colony Artists' Guild.
Located in the historic Old Windsor Fire Station
147 Main St., Windsor, VT.
(802) 674-6008
Summer Hours:
Wednesday - Sunday
11:00am to 5:00pm