GLENS FALLS, NY.- Thanks to the gracious bequest of former trustee and longtime Hyde Collection supporter Evelyn “Evie” Muller, who passed away in March, the Glens Falls museum has acquired a second work by American realist George Bellows, entitled Freeman Young’s Place (Matinicus Island, Maine). The colorful landscape has not been seen publicly since 1923, shortly before the artist's untimely death in January, 1925 at the age of 42.




The painting is one in a series that Bellows completed during a 1916 trip to Maine, where he painted a small holding of an island fisherman named Freeman Young on Matinicus Island. Bellows was influenced by the uses of color by Post-Impressionists and Fauvists, as well as by color theorist Hardesty Maratta (1864-1924). With Freeman Young's Place, he adapts these influences to his own ends by using bright hues, a color chord of yellow-green, orange-yellow and blue-green to determine spatial recession of his landscape. Bellows had begun going to Maine in 1911, as a student of Robert Henri. Every time he returned, his paintings were different, reflecting new influences. Visually and emotionally, Freeman Young's Place is different in feel and atmosphere to the world of Homer, Henri and Rockwell Kent, who had all influenced him on previous Main trips.

As a student of Henri’s at the New York School of Art, Bellows made his name with his boisterous depictions of modern life, before passing away from appendicitis at 42. His style was more diverse than critics of his day acknowledged; he produced in his career both cerebral and theoretical explorations of color and composition, like Freeman Young’s Place, as well as dour portraits such as Old Lady with Bonnet, the first Bellows painting in The Hyde's permanent collection. In 1913, he helped organize the Armory Show, which brought a wide array of European artists to America, the first time many US artists experienced European art first hand.

A two-term Hyde trustee, Muller’s true relationship with the Museum ran far deeper than her seat on the board—for three decades, she supported every major initiative at The Hyde, from the restoration of Hyde House to the opening of the Feibes & Schmitt Gallery. “With her humor, grace, generosity, intelligence and lack of pretension, Evie raised the bar by simply walking in the room,” says former Hyde Director Randy Suffolk. “She was a wonderful leader and the best of friends.”

Once hanging in Muller’s New York dining room, Freeman Young’s Place, though a depiction of the Atlantic, surely “reminded Evie of her waterside home and summertime haven on Lake George as the place that brought her into contact with The Hyde,” says former Hyde Deputy Director and Chief Curator Erin Coe.

“It’s fitting,” adds Director of Curatorial Affairs Jonathan Canning, “that whenever this painting is exhibited or reproduced, the accompanying credit line will always articulate the deep and indivisible bond between Evie and The Hyde.”

Freeman Young's Place joins Bellows’ Old Lady with Bonnet in the Hyde House’s East Guest Bedroom.