Woodmere celebrates the generous gift of paintings by Walter Elmer Schofield from the artist’s niece Margaret Phillips and the extended Schofield Phillips family. A leader of the Pennsylvania Impressionists and a central figure in the broader phenomenon of American Impressionism, Schofield worked in Philadelphia and abroad in Cornwall, England, where he made his home. This exhibition will showcase masterpieces such as Montmartre (c. 1896) and Early Winter Morning (1908–9), as well as the recent gift of The Steam Trawlers, Boulogne (1909).
Born in Philadelphia in 1866, Schofield was the son of a prominent businessman, Benjamin Schofield. He attended Swarthmore Preparatory School for a year and graduated from Central High School. His adoption of painting as a profession derived from a visit to a ranch in Texas, where ranch hands saw his sketches and proclaimed him a budding artist, an observation he took to heart. From 1889 to 1892, Schofield studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alongside Willi
