A founding member of the Ten American Painters, J. Alden Weir was president of the National Academy of Design, the first president of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, and a distinguished American impressionist painter. His home in Ridgefield, Connecticut is now a National Historic Site where artists are invited to spend a month in residence.

Artists’ Colonies in New Mexico, California, Indiana, Connecticut, and Massachusetts played a major role in the development of plein air painting and American Impressionism from the 1880s through the 1940s. The Reading Public Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania is currently exhibiting paintings by leading members of those communities.