Gari Melchers Home and Studio

I love the colors in this! *Blue Flowers in a Yellow Pot*, by Gari Melchers, 1924.

My research put the Gari Melchers Home and Studio on our travel map, yet neither of us had ever heard of Gari Melchers.

We figured that if preserving his home and studio seemed worthwhile, a tour might be worthwhile, too, and we were happy to have our suspicions confirmed.

*The Pink Room,* by Corinne Melchers, circa 1910. The painting top left was another painting that hung in their house, and appeared in several of their paintings.

Gari Melchers (1860-1932) was a popular American artist in his day, but as his work was not especially innovative, it fell from public consciousness after his death.

He trained in Europe, and presented at the Salon of Paris in 1882 and 1886. I just read a book (Impressionism by Nathalia Brodskaia, which I quite enjoyed) that covered how Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Cezanne, and others were rejected from the Salon, so this is quite an honor! In 1889, he won a Grand Prize at the Paris Universal Exposition.

I loved how even the spring house was decorative and surrounded by flowers.

Melchers was also a professor of art, and served many organizations, including as a chairman of the Art Committee of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He won a 1932 Gold medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Melchers’ best-known work are murals depicting War and Peace in the rotunda of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. His works also hang in many other public offices, such as the Detroit Public Library and the Missouri State Capitol. He was even hired to paint a portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt!

This is a study of Mark Twain for the panels that went up in the Missouri State Capital…but in the final, the cigar is gone, too “ungentlemanly”.

Gari lived in and restored the 18^th-century home, known as Belmont, in Falmouth, Virginia, with his wife Corinne, from 1916 until his death. He had the studio built on site to his specifications; it’s huge with wonderful natural light (the cover photo is the inside of the studio). Corinne bequeathed the home and its 27 acres to the state after her death in 1955, as the couple had no children. It includes most of their possessions, including lots of antiques from their travels abroad.

Corinne (nee Lawton Mackall) (1880-1955) was a talented painter in her own right, having opened an art studio before she’d even met her husband. She was an active gardener, and was heavily involved in the restoration of the grounds of the Kenmore historic home we toured later. Among many other humanitarian achievements, she helped establish the Mary Washington Hospital and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (which we also visited).