In the 1930s, American Impressionist painter Guy Carleton Wiggins (1883–1962) turned his painterly eye to the Loomis Homestead in Windsor, Connecticut. His snowy landscape of this centuries-old landmark draws attention to the building’s front steps and foundation riven from local red sandstone as well as two red brick chimneys, most likely constructed of bricks made in the once-prolific local industry. These red ochre features punctuate the painting’s winter palette of greys, whites, and blues. 

Wiggins most likely created the Homestead scene during the four years his son, Guy Arthur Wiggins ’38, attended Loomis. In September 1934, Mr. Wiggins exhibited 15 of his paintings on campus. The entire student body later discussed these in an assembly. In 1936, the Loomis LOG made mention of two spring and fall landscape murals by Wiggins, one in Mason Hall and one in Taylor Hall. Guy C. Wiggins became known for his winter cityscapes of New York City, scenes made distinctive in part by colorful elements of busy street life appearing through snow-veiled skies. The use of color in the Homestead painting alludes to these city views despite the divergent subject matter.

Wiggins had moved his family from New York to Connecticut when the art market turned sluggish during the Great Depression. Guy Arthur recalled in a recent phone interview that his father’s outgoing personality and critical success in the art world made him an ideal teacher. Guy, the elder, opened an art school bearing his name in Lyme, Connecticut, and his wife, Delores, helped to transform a 1764 farm house and out buildings into a studio and residential quarters for students. William C. Card, longtime Loomis music teacher, studied with Wiggins during the summer of 1934. His own painting of the Loomis Homestead — a winter scene — shows the influence of the master artist in its sparse dashes of color and vigorous brush strokes.

Guy Arthur mentioned that it was from Mr. Card that his father had learned about Loomis and met Headmaster Batchelder. He recalled, “I was taken into Loomis as a freshman in 1934 in exchange for paintings to be painted by my father.” At that time, annual room, board, and laundry costs at the tuition-free school amounted to $900, more than the family could afford. During the Great Depression, Mr. Batchelder found it hard to turn away, as he admitted, “boys who so critically needed us and could not afford more expensive schools.”

When Mr. Wiggins and Mr. Card made their Homestead paintings, Jennie Loomis lived in the house, and her death in 1944 marked the end of an unbroken three-century Loomis family residency. In 1874, the Founders of the Loomis Institute designated the Homestead and surrounding lands, once owned by their 17th-century ancestor Joseph Loomis, as the school’s location. The house had been their father’s childhood home, and they had visited their grandparents and extended family there during the 19th century. While they envisioned a school built on the bedrock of the family’s deep connection to the section of Windsor known as the Island, the Founders also laid the foundation for a tuition-free school accessible to students from many backgrounds. Wiggins’ painting of the Loomis Homestead opens a view on these foundations.