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The group called The Ten American Painters was founded in 1898. To contemporaries, the group was quickly seen as the core of American Impressionism. It was created by Childe Hassam, John Twachtman and Julian Weir. The group included Willard Metcalf, Edmund Tarbell, Frank Benson, Joseph De Camp, Thomas Dewing, Edward Simmons and Robert Reid. William Chase joined the group in 1902 after the death of Twachtman. The interest of the group was in the annual public exhibition of work that shared an aesthetic thrust. The Ten survived for almost twenty years till it was dissolved in 1917.
Willard Metcalf belonged to the Boston School. Of the Boston painters he was the only one who had also been one of the Givernists who painted in proximity to Monet in 1877. His own work did not turn to Impressionism till the mid-1890s, though, and his fame dated from his membership of The Ten. Metcalf's was an art that celebrated the New England landscape and architecture, familiar from trips he undertook from his New York home. The radiant colours of Gloucester Harbour, painted in 1895 and one of his best known painting, show the influence of Impressionism on his art at that date. In style and subject matter, Metcalf was often palpably close to other American artists such as Robinson and particularly Hassam.
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