Morgan Colt

Morgan Colt trained as an architect at Columbia University and practiced architecture in New York. He came to New Hope in 1912 to lead a more artistic life free of the restrictions placed on his creativity by clients and builders. A friend of William Langson Lathrop, Colt rented the former pig barn on the painter's property at Phillips' Mill. Colt redesigned and added to the building to make a home and studio. He designed hand-crafted wood and iron furniture in a small rustic building, calling it "The Gothic Shop." Colt was influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement in which industrial manufacturing was rejected in favor of craftsmanship, especially medieval handicrafts. At the same time, Colt also practiced landscape painting. Lathrop, Charles Rosen, Robert Spencer, Rae Sloan Bredin, Daniel Garber, and Colt founded the New Hope Group of Painters for "mutual support and convenience." The Group exhibited together from 1916 and 1926. Colt produced relatively few paintings, and today, his work can be difficult to find.

Education and Training
School of Architecture, Columbia University, New York, New York
Academie Julian with Bouguereau and Ferrier, Paris, France

Teachers and Influences
William Langson Lathrop, New Hope, Pennsylvania

Connection to Bucks County
Morgan Colt and his wife moved to New Hope from New York in 1912, so Colt could study with painter William Lathrop. They first lived in a house on the Towpath near Rabbit Run. He then purchased the buildings that formerly housed pigs at Phillips' Mill, which he converted into his home and the Gothic Shop. He lived there until his death in 1926. His wife, Jane Boudinot Keith Colt, continued to run the Gothic Shop after his death.

Colleagues
Amos Armitage, Isaac Wallwork, ironworkers/craftsmen who worked with Colt at the Gothic Shop
The New Hope Group, including Rae Sloan Bredin, Daniel Garber, William L. Lathrop, Charles Rosen, and Robert Spencer
Edward Redfield

Membership
Art Alliance of Philadelphia
Boston Art Club
New York Society of Craftsmen
Salmagundi Club, New York

Major Group Exhibitions
Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, New York, 1915-1917, 1919
Panama Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, California, 1915
Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1909, 1913, 1915-1919, 1921-1922, 1926
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 1915, 1916
Biennial Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1916
Phillips' Mill Annual Art Exhibition, New Hope, Pennsylvania, 1929, 1962
The Pennsylvania School of Landscape Painting: An Original American Impressionism, Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1984
Masterworks of American Impressionism, Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 1994
The Skillman Collection, Thomas Galbraith Studios, New Hope, Pennsylvania, 1995
Earth, River and Light: Masterworks of Pennsylvania Impressionism, Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 2002
Objects of Desire: Treasures from Private Collections, Michener Art Museum, New Hope, Pennsylvania, 2005-2006
An Evolving Legacy: Twenty Years of Collecting at the James A. Michener Art Museum, Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 2009-2010

Collections
Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA

Architecture
The Gothic Shop and Colt's studio and home at Phillips' Mill, New Hope, Pennsylvania
Formerly White Oaks and the Holmqvist School for Girls (now Hotel du Village), New Hope, Pennsylvania