With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
William Ashby McCloy
Education/Curation, Painting/Drawing, Sculpture
1913 – 2000
An accomplished painter and sculptor, William Ashby McCloy’s work evolved from a Regionalist figurative style, learned in the Midwest working with John Steuart Curry, early in his career, toward an increasingly abstract one in later years. He taught at Connecticut College, where he was also Art Department Chairman.
- Biography/Description of Work
William Ashby McCloy lived in Nanking and Shanghai, China until the age of thirteen, and returned to the United States in 1926. He earned a BA in Art at the State University of Iowa in 1933. He spent one year at Yale School of Fine Arts before returning to Iowa for a MA in the Psychology of Art (1936). McCloy was Mural Assistant to John Steuart Curry and executed two major mural commissions himself (1939-1943). He spent 1943-1946 in the US Army where he served as a Clinical Psychologist. Returning to the State University of Iowa, McCloy received a MFA in Painting in 1949 under the G.I. Bill and later a PhD in Art History in 1958. He had a 40-year teaching career including 24 years at Connecticut College where he was hired in the mid-1950s. He chaired the college’s Art Department from 1954-1972, and retired in 1978. McCloy’s long, collegial friendship with former Slater Museum director Joseph Gualtieri led him to create Aspirations, a weathering steel outdoor sculpture, in 1975-76 specifically for the Slater Memorial Museum grounds. His sculpture is also displayed at Castle Court in the arts complex at Connecticut College, while his paintings are in the collections of the Slater Memorial and other museums.
- Sources view
- Barbara Zabel interview, 3/13/2015.
Vivian Zoe interview, fall 2014.
Slater Muse, Fall 2012. - Associated Resource(s)