The Cornish Colony was one of the first artist colonies in the United States. Beginning with sculptor, Augustus St. Gaudens in 1885, the colony grew to include painters, sculptors, decorators, illustrators, an architect, landscape designers, novelists, journalists, playwrights, poets, critics, essayists, composers, musicians, theatrical performers and patrons of the arts, from Boston and particularly
from New York.
Inspired by the natural beauty of the river valley and Mt. Ascutney but also the unique creative camaraderie, the colonists fostered intellectual and artistic life in the area. Although named after a town in New Hampshire, the Cornish Colony was spread over Windsor, Vermont, as well as the villages of Plainfield and Cornish, New Hampshire. Many of the colonists came from New York City via train and arrived at the Windsor Station which still stands today. Windsor was the postal code and town center for the entire area. Windsor will be the physical and creative center for the Cornish Colony Arts Council.
A partial list of Cornish Colonists:
Adeline Pond Adams, poet and art historian
Herbert Adams, sculptor
Ethel Barrymore, actress
George de Forest Brush, painter
Winston Churchill, American novelist
Kenyon Cox, painter and muralist
Thomas Dewing, painter
Marie Dressler, actress
Isadora Duncan, dancer
Barry Faulkner, muralist and mosaicist
Daniel Chester French, sculptor
Henry Brown Fuller, painter
Learned Hand, judge
Percy MacKaye, dramatist
Paul Manship, sculptor
Rose Standish Nichols, garden designer, writer, and activist
Maxfield Parrish, painter and muralist
Stephen Parrish, painter and etcher
Maxwell Perkins, editor
Charles A. Platt, architect and garden designer
Edith Prellwitz, painter
Henry Prellwitz, painter
Frederic Remington, painter, sculptor and author
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, sculptor
Louis St. Gaudens, sculptor and Augustus Saint-Gaudens' brother
Everett Shinn, painter and illustrator
Florence Scovel Shinn, illustrator and writer
Ellen Biddle Shipman, landscape architect
Bessie Potter Vonnoh, sculptor
Robert Vonnoh, painter
Woodrow Wilson, American president
William Zorach, sculptor