Harriet Randall Lumis

Harriet Randall Lumis (1867-1953) was born in the village of Salem, Connecticut. She began drawing and painting at a young age. A lifelong adherent to the tenets of Impressionism, Lumis was known for her vividly-colored portrayals of the New England landscape and coastline. In 1892, she married the architect, Fred Lumis, and moved to Springfield, MA. One year later, she enrolled in drawing classes under Mary Hubbard and James Hall and studied painting with Willis S. Adams, an exponent of Tonalism. In 1910 and again in 1911, she worked under another tonalist painter, Leonard Octman, at Mianus, CT.

"Harriet Randall Lumis (1867-1953) was born in the village of Salem, Connecticut. She began drawing and painting at a young age. A lifelong adherent to the tenets of Impressionism, Lumis was known for her vividly-colored portrayals of the New England landscape and coastline. In 1892, she married the architect, Fred Lumis, and moved to Springfield, MA. One year later, she enrolled in drawing classes under Mary Hubbard and James Hall and studied painting with Willis S. Adams, an exponent of Tonalism. In 1910 and again in 1911, she worked under another tonalist painter, Leonard Octman, at Mianus, CT.
During this period, she developed an awareness of Impressionism. She subsequently replaced her dark, tonal colorism with a brilliant palette and adopted Monet's technique of dissolving forms in light through scintillating, broken brushwork. In 1920, she developed and refined her technique even further, taking instruction from the noted Impressionist, Hugh Breckenridge, at his summer school in Gloucester.
In 1921, Lumis was elected a member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Throughout the next decade, into the early 1930s, she exhibited her work at the Springfield Art League, the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design in New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Lumis also had several solo exhibitions at the Jasper Rand Art Museum in Westfield, MA. During these years, she painted, for the most part in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Following the death of her husband in 1938, she started teaching landscape painting in order to supplement her income. In the years ahead, she became a staunch defender of Impressionism, and realistic art in general. As a means of solidifying her traditionalist views, she helped to found the Academic Artists Association in Springfield and published an article in the ""Springfield Union"" in which she denounced abstract art. Shie is identified with the Connecticut School of Impressionism.
After her death in 1953, Lumis's accomplishments were largely overlooked, however, with the recent scholarly interest in the tradition of American Impressionism, her reputation has since been revived. During 1977-1978, an important exhibition of her paintings was circulated to museums in Missouri, Wisconsin, and Ohio. Her paintings can be found in many public and private collections, including the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, the Butler Institute of American Art, and the Asheville Art Museum." [Source: Museum staff, LC pulled from AAM website 8.17.18]