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Every so often, usually when Erie County is trying to find money for the library system, somebody suggests selling Childe Hassam’s painting, “Summer Afternoon, Isle of Shoals.” It’s a magnificent painting by the man who is widely considered the father of American Impressionism.
I recall a prominent local businessman suggesting that the county hire a painter to duplicate “Summer Afternoon,” and then sell the original, which in 2018 was thought to be worth more than $2 million.
During a recent vacation, our family visited the Florence Griswold Museum in Lyme, Connecticut, and viewed more than a dozen Hassam paintings. An administrator there said, “Tell Erie not to sell that painting under any circumstance, unless we can buy it.”