Hawthorne Fine Art announces a landmark exhibition of the rarely seen paintings of Clark Greenwood Voorhees, the originator of Old Lyme Impressionism. Running December 15, 2009 through February 27, 2010, The Light Lies Softly, The Impressionist Art of Clark Greenwood Voorhees will be the first full-scale show of the artist's work in three decades.

Held closely by his family for generations, the paintings of Clark Voorhees have traditionally been hidden from the public eye. In this exclusive showing, scheduled to run for 3 months, Hawthorne Fine Art will highlight 30 significant paintings by Voorhees depicting a range of subjects which include Newport, RI; Old Lyme, CT and Bermuda. Select works will be for sale.

Gallery owner Jennifer Krieger considers the exhibition an extraordinary honor. "It is exceedingly rare to uncover a hidden trove of work by a first-rate American Impressionist, especially one with so many polished large-scale works," she explains. "Voorhees' works possess technical and stylistic qualities that unquestionably parallel those of his contemporaries Willard Metcalf, William Merritt Chase, John Twachtman and Childe Hassam."

The exhibition will be accompanied by a scholarly catalogue written by Marshall N. Price, noted art historian and Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Academy of Design. Price comments, "This exhibition not only helps to reveal an understudied artist, but also sheds much needed light on Voorhees' important contributions to the art colony at Old Lyme, Connecticut."

Other paintings by the artist are on display in the collections of the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, CT, and the Chicago Union League Club.