Yacht Club Basin, Cos Cob Harbor

This painting depicting the Mianus River at Cos Cob, Connecticut, is a companion to the artist’s work of the same year entitled Low Tide, Riverside Yacht Club (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Having returned from Giverny, France, in 1892, Theodore Robinson sought out the close association of an art colony, such as he had experienced abroad in the circle that formed around Claude Monet. He found such a group among the American Impressionists in Cos Cob, located only a short journey by train from New York. Perhaps closer to Monet than any other American artist, Robinson imbues this painting with high key, impressionist colors capturing the brilliant effect of the sun glinting off the river’s surface in an effusion of lavender, coral, and powder blue.