Night, Old Windham, 1904
Oil on canvas
Gift of The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company 2002.1.25

The Danish-born Emil Carlsen trained as an architect before emigrating to the United States in 1872. Over the next two decades, he studied and taught art in Chicago, Paris, San Francisco, and New York, and built a reputation as a still-life painter. In 1896, Carlsen began summering in Connecticut, where he took up the subject of landscape. At first, he stayed at artist J. Alden Weir’s home in Windham Center, even residing with his family in a cottage on Weir’s property.

This painting, completed in 1904, probably depicts that spot. The following year, Carlsen bought his own home in the northwest Connecticut town of Falls Village. The limited tonal range and carefully constructed surface of Night, Old Windham recall the work of John H. Twachtman, the influential Impressionist and teacher whose paintings Carlsen admired. Carlsen’s intimate response to nature creates a hushed, dreamlike mood that is the hallmark of his landscapes.