Willard Metcalf, or “Metty” as he was called by his artist friends, found his artistic voice while staying with Miss Florence in Old Lyme. His painting May Night (1906), that shows the front of Miss Florence’s house on a starry spring night, won him prizes and fame when it was exhibited in Washington, D.C. in 1907.

Metcalf followed his New York friend Childe Hassam to Old Lyme as early as 1905 for a summer devoted to painting en plein air, or painting outdoors. For Metcalf, this direct study of nature was part of both his painting technique and his hobby of collecting natural specimens. In 1906, one critic said that Metcalf “connives to translate into paint the freshness and fragrance of fields, gardens and evening air. It is nature, rather than the studio, of which he apprises us.” It was in his paintings of the New England landscape that Metcalf truly excelled, capturing the colors and atmosphere of a crisp fall day and prompting his designation as the Poet Laureate of the New England hills. He was masterful at depicting the seasons when the trees change colors or when winter ice thaws into spring.