Aldro T. Hibbard (American, 1886-1972)

Born in Falmouth, Massachusetts on August 25, 1886, Aldro Thompson Hibbard was an Impressionist landscape painter. Growing up in Dorchester and the surrounding Boston area, and spending his summers in Cape Cod, Hibbard showed early artistic talent as well as a passion for baseball. In 1909, Hibbard studied at the Massachusetts Normal Art School, the Massachusetts College of Art, and at the Boston Museum School through 1913 with peers Edmund C. Tarbell, Frank W. Benson, Leslie P. Thompsen, Joseph R. DeCamp and Philip Hale. Due to his talent, the faculty awarded him with the Paige Travel Scholarship (1913-1915) to study abroad. Returning to America in 1914 after his travel abroad was cut short due to World War I, he declined offers to play professional baseball, becoming a professional painter and art instructor instead. In 1915 Hibbard became an instructor in the Art Department of Boston University. In the early 1920s, he became a summer resident in Cape Ann, Massachusetts, and wintered in Jamaica, Vermont in the West River Valley. There he painted rural snowscenes including oxen pulling wagons, covered bridges, and sugar houses. Much of his body of work represents these subjects in addition to New England coastlines, and the Canadian Rockies. Hibbard later founded the Rockport Art Association Summer School of Drawing and Painting (1921-1928), which later became The Hibbard School of Painting. In Boston from 1927-1929 he occupied Fenway Studios. His memberships include: Guild of Boston Artists; National Academy of Design; Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts; Rockport Art Association; New Haven Paint & Clay Club; North Shore Art Association, Massachusetts; Salmagundi Club, New York; Gloucester Art Association, Massachusetts; Copley Society; Audubon Artists; Allied American Artists; American Artists Prof. League; Academy of American Artists, Springfield, MA and more. His works are in: the collection of: Addison Gallery of American Art; the Crocker Art Museum; the Farnsworth Art Museum; the Georgia Museum of Art; the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian; the Oklahoma City Museum of Art; the Pennsylvania, Academy of the Fine Arts; the Rockport Art Association; and the Whistler House Museum of Art. Hibbard died in Rockport, Massachusetts on November 12th, 1972.