1900 – 1989

The development of the Hartford Colony began when Henry Cooke White (1861-1952), the patriarch of this artistic family, discovered the area in 1891.
Several group shows of the White family’s [three generations] have been held in recent years. Celebrating the longevity of their
association with the region, these exhibits record how Connecticut’s natural world was interpreted by the individual artistic sensibilities of father, son, and grandson. One held in 1985 at the Florence Griswold Museum was entitled, ‘The Whites of Waterford: An American Landscape Tradition.’

Biography/Description of Work

Nelson Cooke White is part of an artistic family lineage that started with his father, Henry Cooke White (1861-1952) and continues with his son, Nelson Holbrook White. He grew up in Waterford surrounded by artist important artists in his father’s circle, including Dwight Tryon, Charles Dewing, Abbot Thayer and Childe Hassam, all of whose work he often had the opportunity to see. He learned landscape painting from his father, and studied at the National Academy of Design from 1920 to 1924. He focused on seascapes and coastal landscapes, and was a member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts and the Lyme Art Association. In addition to his art, he wrote biographies of two major artists: Abbot H. Thayer and J. Frank Currier.
love of the sea and became a
noted marine and landscape painter. First taught by his father, he was also influenced by Dwight Tyron and other
artists of the day who visited the Whites, such as Dewing, Thayer, and Hassam; many of their paintings hung on the
grass cloth covered walls of the White Point home. He studied at the National Academy of Design (1920-1924),
followed by a year at Yale. Like his father, Nelson was a biographer of other painters, namely Abbot Thayer and J.
Frank Currier, and a member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts. He married a Waterford girl, Aida Rovetti
(1897-2002), an Italian-American daughter of a master stone cutter at the Waterford quarries. She had come to
Nelson’s attention when she applied for the position of second maid in his father’s household. After their marriage,
Aida White easily took her place alongside Mary Harkness and Mary Hammond, the other doyennes of Waterford’s
estate society.7 The Whites often summered near Cremona, her father’s birthplace, where their children became
fluent in the language and Nelson C. developed his lifelong interest in Italian culture. A fellow at the Cesare
Barberi Center at Trinity College, he also was a board member of Casa Italiana at Columbia and a honorary trustee
of the Wadsworth Atheneum. He exhibited at Old Lyme from 1950 to 1985, and his work is also found with his
father’s in major museums in Connecticut and major galleries in New York and Sag Harbor.

Nelson Cooke White was born in Waterford, CT and studied painting with his father, Henry Cooke White. He came late to Old Lyme, accomplishing several fine marine and coastal views from 1950 to 1985. At the apex of career, he exhibited at both the Chicago Art Institute and the National Academy. White’s boundless energy extended beyond his art. He served as a trustee of the Lyman Allen Museum and the Wadsworth Athenaeum, in addition to writing The Life and Art of J. Frank Currier. His son, Nelson White, carried on the family tradition and became a noted painter residing in Old Lyme.

Sources view

Cunningham, Jan. Hartford Colony National Register Historic District Nomination No. 04000414. National Park Service, 2004. ×

Associated Resource(s)

• 22 Shore Road, Waterford