Ruth recalled the “sweet smell of fields, of growing things with the salt downy fog dripping from the blackness that was East Hampton’s night.” The Morans’ daughter, Ruth, later recalled the last leg of the journey, from the rail terminus at Bridgehampton in a stagecoach - “Seven sandy, woodsy miles in a knife-box stage, smelling of leather and hay” - and her initial impressions of the village, in which they arrived at dusk. It consisted of a single grassy street, around which were clustered a number of old saltbox houses. A PLACE TO LIVE AND PAINTįounded two centuries earlier, the village of East Hampton had a population of roughly 600 at the time of the Morans’ arrival. In the summer of 1879, Moran and his wife, Scottish-born illustrator Mary Nimmo Moran, rented rooms in a local boarding house and began to explore the pastoral beauty and oceanic majesty of the Hamptons. Thanks to the enthusiastic reports of The Tile Club, however, the painter of the West was now turning his gaze East. Some of these images - including his seven-foot-high, 12-foot-long masterpiece, “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone” - were purchased by the federal government and provided the impetus for legislation that would eventually produce the National Park System. Moran’s paintings of Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and other now-familiar Western landmarks were also viewed by members of Congress and President Ulysses S. Thomas Moran's "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone." The magazine thought a first-hand report on this place by the intrepid Tile Clubbers would prove entertaining.īy clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy. A handful of artists and writers had started visiting the area in the years before the Civil War and word was filtering back about its many charms. The members of the club had been encouraged by Scribner’s, a popular literary and arts magazine, to take a sort of artistic field trip to the boondocks of Long Island. Hence, the name of the association they had formed: Part professional organization, part college fraternity, it was dubbed “The Tile Club.”īut they weren’t looking for ceramic tiles to paint in the Hamptons. The group of 11 shared something in common: They were New York City-based painters and illustrators with a common interest in decorative arts - pottery, glass, textiles. They had come from New York City to visit the sleepy, rural outpost of East Hampton because they’d heard about its powerful natural attractions.
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