Trail Site #2 : The Red Cottage, 252 East Main Street
DIRECTIONS: From the Rocky Neck Parking Lot, walk back to the corner of Rocky Neck Ave. and East Main Street.
Turn left and walk to the Red Cottage, which will be on your right at 252 E. Main Street.
“I would set out with my equipment and walk a mile or so until I saw some kind of subject that had exciting plastic rhythms and color textures that could be the starting point of a theme.” — John Sloan
The Red Cottage at 252 East Main Street is marked by a sign reading “Daniel Gill – Fisherman 1847.” John Sloan (1871-1951) and his wife Dolly rented the house for the summer of 1914 together with their close friends Charles and Alice Winter. In later years, they were joined by the sculptor Helen Davis and her two sons Stuart and Wyatt, all squeezed into the tiny cottage. During that summer of 1914, Sloan’s first long painting vacation, he produced 90 paintings. The Sloans stayed at the Red Cottage through the summer of 1918. In addition to the Winters and the Davises, they were joined for art and conversation by Sloan’s sister Mariana and the music composer for the original theatre production of The Wizard of Oz, Paul Tietjens, as well as artists Paul Cornoyer, Randall Davey, Leon Kroll, Agnes Richmond, and F. Carl Smith. Gloucester became too crowded with artists for the Sloans, who in 1919 headed for New Mexico. Meanwhile that year, the Red Cottage was left vacant for a new generation of artists when the Davises moved on, having bought a house at 51 Mt. Pleasant Avenue, and the Winters relocated to 144 Mt. Pleasant Avenue.
