Au café

Within its compressed vertical format, Au Café presents a quick glimpse up a row of small tables in a fashionable Parisian sidewalk establishment crowded with patrons. Beyond the stylish couple dominating the foreground, figures converse, drink, smoke, and read under gas lamps in a dense atmosphere of conviviality. In his painting, Willard Leroy Metcalf emphasizes steep recession into space through echoing series of circular forms created by the lamps, tabletops, and men’s hats. The vista terminates in a glimpse of the night sky, dark blue beyond the café’s pale green awning. Contrasting notes of black and white are relieved by thinly painted areas of muted greens and blues and by the emergence in several places of the tawny surface of the panel support.

In the late nineteenth century, Paris was universally acknowledged as the capital of fashion and pleasure, particularly for its vibrant nightlife and café society. When he painted Au Café Metcalf was close to the end of his five-year sojourn in Paris as a student at the Académie Julian. There he pursued conventional academic training, which emphasized the idealized human figure; during holidays, however, he followed the contemporary practice of visiting rural art colonies to paint bucolic landscapes. Among the American art students abroad, few followed the example of their more adventurous French contemporaries in portraying Paris’s renowned world of public leisure and entertainment. Au Café is one of few Metcalf works that record life in Paris. Its small size and sketch-like spontaneity suggests that the artist painted it as he sat among the patrons in the café.

Metcalf's study of Parisian society was influenced by the French impressionists, known for their paintings of contemporary scenes rendered with energetic brushwork that evoked the transience of modern life. Notwithstanding his immersion in traditional techniques as a Julian student, Metcalf was undoubtedly familiar with the impressionists’ work: beginning in 1885 he spent long holidays in Giverny, the Normandy village to which numerous Americans were attracted by the presence of French painter Claude Monet (1840–1926), a leader in impressionist painting. Indeed, Metcalf gave Au Café to his Giverny hosts, the proprietors of the Hotel Baudy. Most of Monet’s American admirers confined their tentative experiments in impressionism to landscape painting, but Au Café suggests Metcalf’s appreciation for the impressionists’ paintings of urban life. However, its thin, sketchy paint application; tall vertical format;compressed space; and lively patterns of contrasting light and dark evoke two other important influences on Metcalf and his contemporaries: the iconoclastic American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler and the Japanese prints that inspired many of Whistler’s innovations. A memento of Metcalf’s life as an American art student in Paris, Au Café testifies to the diverse influences shaping the artist at a formative moment in the development of his art.

Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915 (Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 1993; April 1–October 30, 1994; April 1–October 31, 1995. [exh. cat.]

American Artists and the Paris Experience, 1880–1910, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 22, 1997–March 8, 1998.

Ville et campagne: les artistes américains, 1870–1920 (The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–July 15, 1999; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 10, 1999–May 7, 2000 (in modified form). [exh. cat.]

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 2000.

Selections from the Permanent Collection: American Artists in France, 1860–1910, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 10–June 3, 2001.

Paris-New York, aller-retour. Une Modernité américaine en formation, 1875–1940. Oeuvres des collections de la Terra Foundation for the Arts et des Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens (Paris-New York, Roundtrip. American Modernism in the Making, 1875–1940. Works from the Terra Foundation for the Arts and the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, September 15–November 30, 2002. [exh. cat.]

Studied Abroad: Painted Impressions from the Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 6, 2003–April 4, 2004.

Le Passage à Paris: les artistes américains en France, 1860–1930 (Passing through Paris: American Artists in France, 1860–1930), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny,  April 1–October 31, 2005. [exh. brochure]

Americans in Paris 1860–1900. National Gallery, London, England and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachussetts in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York (organizers). Venues:  National Gallery, London, England, February 22–May 21, 2006; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,  Massachusetts, June 25–September 24, 2006; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,  New York, October 16, 2006–January  28, 2007. [exh. cat]

Le Temps des loisirs : peintures américaines (At Leisure: American Paintings), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, July 15–October 31, 2007.

Le Temps des loisirs : peintures américaines (At Leisure: American Paintings), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2008.

Electric Paris,  Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut (organizer); Venue: Bruce Museum, May 14–September 4, 2016 [exh. cat.]

Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945, Art Institute of Chicago and Terra Foundation for American Art (organizers). Venue:  Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, China, September 28, 2018–January 6, 2019.   [exh. cat.]

Reymond, Nathalie. Un regard américain sur Paris (An American Glance at Paris). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1997. Text pp. 55–56; ill. p. 54 (color).

Cartwright, Derrick R. The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1999. Text p. 25 (checklist); ill. p. 34 (color).

Cartwright, Derrick R. Ville et campagne: les artistes américains, 1870–1920. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1999. Text p. 25 (checklist); ill. p. 34 (color).

Cartwright, Derrick. "The City and Country: American Perspectives 1870–1920." American Art Review 7:1 (January–February 2000): 100–11. Ill. p. 102 (color).

Farr, Margaret F. Au Café, Willard Leroy Metcalf. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 2000. Ill. (color).

Griffith, Bronwyn and Lee A. Vedder. Paris-New York, aller-retour. (New York-Paris Round Trip). (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 22 (French), 87–88 (English), 106 (checklist); ill. frontispiece (color), fig. 5, p. 22 (color).

Adler, Kathleen et al. Americans in Paris, 1860–1900. (exh. cat. National Gallery of Art) London, England: National Gallery Company Limited, 2006. Text pp. 98, 249; ill. cat. 50, p. 102 (color), p. 249 (color).

H. Barbara Weinberg. American Painters in Paris, 1860–1900: Urban Encounters and Rural Retreats. The Magazine Antiques (November 2006): 122–125. Text pp. 122–123; ill. p. 122 (color).

Karasoulas, Margarita and Hollis Clayson. Electric Paris. (exh. cat. Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut). Greenwich, Connecticut: Bruce Museum, 2016. Text p. 59 cat. no. 43 (checklist); ill.p. 54 (color).

Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945. (exh. cat. Shanghai Museum with Art Institute of Chicago and Terra Foundation for American Art). Shanghai: Shanghai Museum, 2018. Text p. 78; ill. p. 79 (color).