The 16 chairs (eight shown), in red and green, amounted to $310,000 collectively.

Paintings by American Impressionist William S. Robinson at the Cooley Gallery

OLD LYME, CONNECTICUT spanning the artist’s career from France and Old Lyme to Mississippi.

Robinson was born in Gloucester, Mass., in 1861. After attending the Massachusetts Normal Art School, he went on to the Academie Julian in Paris to study with Constant and Lefebvre. His work was gaining recognition just as the “American School” of painting was being defined. In the Paris Exhibition of 1900, Robinson submitted a painting called “Early Evening” alongside those of Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and James McNeil Whistler. Robinson’s entry was awarded an honorable mention.

In 1921 Robinson’s official residence was New York but he began sojourns to Old Lyme as early as 1905 when the art colony’s momentum was at its highest. Robinson moved to Old Lyme year round in 1922 and lived there until 1937. As an advocate of the arts, he was one of the charter members, and later, president of the Lyme Art Association, the oldest art organization of its kind in the country. Like his artist contemporaries, Robinson found the variety in the local landscape irresistible and spent over 30 years exploring it. He left Old Lyme for Mississippi soon after Florence Griswold died in 1937. He lived and painted in Biloxi until his death in 1945.

The gallery exhibition will have 22 of Robinson’s paintings spans his 50-year career. The group is varied. An early work of a French farm echoes the Barbizon tradition with layers of paint and rich, deep colors. Paintings from his later period show influences of the French Impressionists with a fiercely American style. The combined with his subject and composition are masterful work of American Impressionism.

Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 12 p.m. – 4 p.m. Admission is free. Inquiries are welcome. For information, 860-434-8807.