American, 1874 - 1965
Will Howe Foote began his professional studies in 1894 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago under John Vanderpoel. There he formed a close friendship with fellow student Frederick Frieseke. Foote moved to New York and entered the Art Students League in 1895-96, working under Kenyon Cox and H. Siddons Mowbray. During this New York period he contributed illustrations to various popular magazines, including Harper's Weekly, Life, and Brooklyn Life.
Foote went to Paris with Frieseke in the fall of 1897. He enrolled at the Académie Julian, spending the next three years working under Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens. He also briefly attended the Académie Carmen to study under James Abbott McNeill Whistler. He traveled, visiting Italy several times; he spent the summers of 1898 and 1899 sketching in Laren, Holland, and the summer of 1900 working in Étampes, France. On his return to America that year, Foote went first to Grand Rapids, where he had a highly successful exhibition of his European work. He then promptly established himself in New York.
During the summer of 1901, Foote was introduced to the art colony in Old Lyme, Connecticut, by his uncle William Henry Howe, the celebrated painter of animal subjects. The following summer he was an assistant to Frank Vincent DuMond at the Art Students League's summer school in Old Lyme. When in 1906 the school relocated to Woodstock, New York, Foote remained in Old Lyme and began teaching privately there in the summers. In 1907 he married Helen Kirtland Freeman, whom he had met in Old Lyme when she was studying with Henry Rankin Poore. Two years later they built a house in the Connecticut town that would be their home for the rest of their lives. Foote made it a habit, however, to escape the New England winters in the Caribbean, Mexico, California, and the American Southwest.
Foote was an early member and mainstay of the Connecticut Impressionist school. Under the influence of Childe Hassam and other dedicated Impressionists who formed the Old Lyme circle, he moved from the tonal, atmospheric character of his earlier work to a more high-keyed palette and attention to the rendering of bright light. Even though working in the Impressionist mode, and en plein air, he was not especially dedicated to landscape as a subject; interiors, figures in interior settings, and still lifes had a prominent place in his oeuvre. A frequent exhibitor at the Academy into the 1930s, Foote was awarded a Julius Hallgarten Prize in the annual of 1902.
ML
Foote went to Paris with Frieseke in the fall of 1897. He enrolled at the Académie Julian, spending the next three years working under Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens. He also briefly attended the Académie Carmen to study under James Abbott McNeill Whistler. He traveled, visiting Italy several times; he spent the summers of 1898 and 1899 sketching in Laren, Holland, and the summer of 1900 working in Étampes, France. On his return to America that year, Foote went first to Grand Rapids, where he had a highly successful exhibition of his European work. He then promptly established himself in New York.
During the summer of 1901, Foote was introduced to the art colony in Old Lyme, Connecticut, by his uncle William Henry Howe, the celebrated painter of animal subjects. The following summer he was an assistant to Frank Vincent DuMond at the Art Students League's summer school in Old Lyme. When in 1906 the school relocated to Woodstock, New York, Foote remained in Old Lyme and began teaching privately there in the summers. In 1907 he married Helen Kirtland Freeman, whom he had met in Old Lyme when she was studying with Henry Rankin Poore. Two years later they built a house in the Connecticut town that would be their home for the rest of their lives. Foote made it a habit, however, to escape the New England winters in the Caribbean, Mexico, California, and the American Southwest.
Foote was an early member and mainstay of the Connecticut Impressionist school. Under the influence of Childe Hassam and other dedicated Impressionists who formed the Old Lyme circle, he moved from the tonal, atmospheric character of his earlier work to a more high-keyed palette and attention to the rendering of bright light. Even though working in the Impressionist mode, and en plein air, he was not especially dedicated to landscape as a subject; interiors, figures in interior settings, and still lifes had a prominent place in his oeuvre. A frequent exhibitor at the Academy into the 1930s, Foote was awarded a Julius Hallgarten Prize in the annual of 1902.
ML
