Catalogue entry

Winter Quiet (currently unlocated), which received the Third Hallgarten Prize at the National Academy Annual in 1916, was Folinsbee's first real professional success on a national level. Reviewing the prize-winning paintings, the Youngstown Vindicator remarked, "It is a grey, hazy winter day with just enough sun to cast a faint shadow. The title, 'Winter Quiet' is very fitting; there is a hushed and silent quality of a snow-covered winter landscape. The trees are lavender and violet grey in the haze." (1) Writing to his friend, Edith Rossiter Bevan, shortly after the close of the exhibition, Folinsbee was quite modest about his new-found success. "That any jury should think my work worthy of a prize seems impossible," he reflected, "Ruth and I have not yet recovered from the surprise of receiving it."

Folinsbee also commented to Bevan on the subject of the painting, writing "I wonder if you were disappointed in finding the prize canvas an old one--the one of the Old Mill! It surely doesn't seem worthy of the honor." (2) It is unclear whether Folinsbee was referring to the Old Mill in Washington, Connecticut, or one in New Canaan, where the Silvermine Artist Colony was located; Folinsbee had spent the summer of 1915 painting in New Canaan and exhibiting with the other artists at Silvermine. He could also be referring to a mill in Woodstock, New York, another locale with which both were familiar (Bevan was the grand-daughter of genre painter Thomas Rossiter and the sister of architect Ehrick Kensett Rossiter). A Washington or New Canaan location seems most probable, but so far the setting has so far proved elusive.

(1) Youngstown Vindicator, 31 January 1916, Folinsbee clipping book, John F. Folinsbee Art Trust.
(2) Folinsbee to Edith Rossiter Bevan, 20 April 1916 (Thomas P. Rossiter Papers, Archives of American Art)