First Centennial Project Coming To Weir Farm National Historic Site

WILTON — Weir Farm National Historic Site moved one step closer to becoming an artist’s paradise this month when it was named one of only 76 national parks and sites across the country to receive funding to kick off the National Park Service’s Centennial in 2016. The nationwide National Park Service Centennial is planned as an eight-year celebration of programs and projects leading up to 2016.

The Weir Farm centennial grant of $141,000 will match funds raised by the Weir Farm Art Center, the park’s private partner, to make an Artist in Residence studio a reality sometime in late 2009.

Weir Farm National Historic Site was the country residence of American Impressionist J. Alden Weir (1852-1919), who with many of his contemporaries, including Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent and John Twachtman, painted at the site. It is among the most important landscapes in the history of American art.

“Weir Farm National Historic Site is grateful to the Weir Farm Art Center for their years of fundraising and support,” said Weir Farm National Historic Site Superintendent Linda Cook. “Being so successful in raising the funds and having a design in hand, helped the park compete for this boost of funds that we needed to start construction. The timing on this studio couldn’t be better given all of our other construction projects on site.”

National Park Service Director Mary A. Bomar said: “With the nearly $25 million Congress has appropriated and nearly $27 million of matching commitments from our park partners, the Centennial Initiative today moves onto the landscape and into people’s lives. It’s a great day for the National Park Service and a great day for the Weir Farm National Historic Site and the Weir Farm Art Center.  This is how we put our centennial goals on the ground and it’s quite a beginning.

“We have 110 programs and projects involving more than 130 individual, public and non-profit partners benefiting 76 national parks in 38 states and the District of Columbia.”

The National Park Centennial Initiative is a ten-year program to reinvigorate America’s national parks and prepare them for a second century. The initiative includes a focus on increased funding for park operations plus a President’s Challenge of up to $100 million a year in federal funds to match $100 million a year in philanthropic donations to the National Park Service.

The Artist in Residence studio will be located next to the Caretaker’s Cottage on Nod Hill Road.  Artists will continue to live in the house, but will now be able to create their work in the studio instead of in the cottage attic. The new building will be part rehabilitation and part new construction, and is based on the barn that originally stood there.

Designed by the local firm Faesy-Smith Architects, the studio incorporates elements inspired by drawings of artist Mahonri Young who lived and worked at the farm for 30 years, as well as photographs from the 1940s. Like the Weir and Young studios on site, the new studio will draw in northern light to create an ideal and inspiring work environment.

The construction is expected to cost close to $400,000.

The Artist in Residence program manifests Weir Farm Art Center’s mission to promote and sustain the legacy of Julian Alden Weir. Like Weir, 142 artists have lived and worked in the caretaker’s house at the Weir Farm National Historic Site during the past nine years. Artists in Residence are selected by professionals from the art museum and academic arenas.

To date, they have awarded residencies to artists applying from throughout Europe and the US, India, Japan, Tunisia, Ireland, Africa, and Iceland.