The Art of Love

Connie and Gari

One of Savannah’s greatest love stories was between Corrine Lawton Mcakall and Gari Melchers. The vast amount of their time as a married couple was not spent in Savannah but the influence on Savannah of their marriage ties would be monumentally. Gari Melchers was one of America’s greatest early twentieth century painters. By the time Corrine would meet him he was already established as renowned artist. In 1883 he had with another American painter George Hitchcock established an art colony near the Egmonds aan Zee a fishing village in the Netherlands.

He began to establish himself as one of the better painters in Europe. In an 1888 Munich exhibition, Melchers's entry was awarded a first prize he beat out the second prize winner James Abbott McNeill Whistler, won second prize. The following year he included in the American Section of the Paris Exposition Universelle four paintings. The only Americans to win a prize at the Exposition were Melchers and John Singer Sargent. Melchers's success in Europe led to purchase of his art by influential American art collectors. This in turn led to his fame and exhibitions in the United States.

Meanwhile Corrine who was twenty years his junior was an aspiring artist herself. She took a transatlantic voyage to Europe to study. On this same voyage was Melchers. Upon learning that the great painter Melchers was on the ship Corrine paid him a visit. And love was discovered. They were married in 1903. With marriage and his successful career Melchers style would change as he began to fill his paintings with brilliant color and domestic scenes with Corrine often his model.

Melchers connection with Savannah was made when Corrine’s uncle, Alexander Lawton the president of the Telfair Academy Board, asked him to act as the collector and purchaser of paintings for the Academy. Melchers said yes if for no other reason than to stay on the good side of his in-laws. He worked officially from 1906-1916 for them but continued to have input until 1930. He would acquire seventy paintings for the Academy. Some of America’s greatest painters were in the paintings Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, William Metcalf, Ernest Lawson and the list goes on. The Academy also purchased one of their favorite paintings of his The Unpretentious Garden with Corrine as a model in their garden in Egmonds.

Melchers would also be primarily responsible in recruiting Daniel Chester French in sculpting the Oglethorpe Statue in Chippewa Square. When he was asked who would he recommend for the commission he steered the Monument Committee from sculptor Alexander Doyle and suggested French. He continued throughout the search to promote French and when French won an award at the Paris Salon sent the notice to the committee and that appears to have been the clinching act in their decision.   

The couple would eventually move to and live in Fredericksburg, Virginia in an estate called Belmont until their respective deaths. While at Belmont Melchers would serve as president of the committee that would eventually start the National Museum of Art in Washington D.C. and he was also appointed to the board of directors of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Corrine, for her part, filled her days as lady of the manor, as a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy, as founder off the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which still owns one of her oil paintings, helping to ensure the restoration of the nearby Kenmore estate of George Washington’s sister, founder of the local garden club, and when she had time painting.

Her last act was to turn the Belmont estate which she and Melchers had enhanced with gardens, nature trails and architectural enhancements to the state of Virginia. The estate is a historic home administered by the University of Mary Washington. The home is filled with Melcher’s and her paintings. Because she meticulously kept everything as it was when they both lived together you can see the life that she and the man she called ‘my artist’ lived.

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Gari Melchers- The Unpretentious Garden

Belmont Estate