New Canaan Historical Society Presents Carl Schmitt, 1889 - 1989 An Artist’s Life: A Retrospective Exhibit

Located in the lovely town of New Canaan, the New Cannan Historical Society has organized a fabulous exhibition of over two dozen works by Carl Schmitt that include: paintings, pastels, etchings, drawings, and sculpture.  The exhibit also includes photos, exhibition catalogs, sketchbooks, and other items from the Foundation's archives illustrating Schmitt's long career and life as an artist.

Carl Schmitt  was born in 1889 in Warren, Ohio and was encouraged by his parents to further his artistic interests. He left Warren at  seventeen to begin formal art studies in New York. Within a few years he headed to Silvermine, Connecticut, where he bought an acre of land with a ruined eighteenth-century stone structure across the road from the American sculptor Solon Borglum. Schmitt refurbished the building and began to attend meetings of the "Knockers Club". Schmitt helped found the more formal Silvermine Guild of Artists, taking part in numerous exhibits.

 Throughout the 1920's Schmitt's paintings were accepted for the most important national exhibitions, including those at the Carnegie Institure, the Corcoran Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicago as well as numerous galleries in New York City. The New Canaan Historical Society is hosting this show as part of its series highlighting members of the Silvermine Group of Artists.

The wide scope of the exhibit is intended to give a broad overview of Schmitt's achievement in many different styles, all animated by his unique aesthetic vision.  It also aims to present his life and work in the context of the artists' colony in Silvermine.  It is a rare opportunity to see many works loaned from private collections, most of which have not been exhibited in many decades and may not be so again.

The New Canaan Historical Society is located at 13 Oenoke Ridge Road in New Canaan, Connecticut and is open Tuesday through Saturday: 9:30 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. On Saturdays, the gallery is closed between 12:30 and 2 p.m. For further information, you may call the Society at 203–966–1776, or visit their website, nchistory.org. The exhibit runs through March 28, 2011.