The Edge of the Wood

Ochtman immigrated to the United States in 1866 from Holland. His family settled in Albany, New York. The artist trained at the Art Students League and began exhibiting at the National Academy of Design in 1880. He returned to Europe in the mid-1880s and was influenced by the atmospheric painting of The Hague School in Holland and by the work of Corot.

The artist settled in Cos Cob with his wife Mina Fonda, also an artist. The two were instrumental in establishing the Connecticut artist colony with J. Alden Weir, Childe Hassam, and John Henry Twachtman. The changing scenery around the Mianus River near their home served as the subject for many of the artist’s landscapes. Ochtman conducted summer art classes at Cos Cob for two decades, taking on students like Clark Vorhees, who went on as one of the founders of the Old Lyme artist’s colony 75 miles to the north of Cos Cob.