Robert Nisbet 

(1879-1961)

Nisbet, like G. L. Nelson, was a founding member of the Kent Art Association and its president for some twenty years. His Impressionist landscapes of the region are very compelling and show his talent and training under the Old Lyme master Willard Metcalf. Nisbet apparently had other talents as well, since he basically fled Old Lyme after successfully enticing Metcalf’s wife to leave him, and the two settled in Kent around 1910. Some of Nisbet’s best works depict scenes around Hatch Pond. I discovered this watercolor gouache image with a Virginia dealer named Steven Koman and later discovered that Nisbet executed a larger oil and an etching of the same very convincing image. The best of his New England impressionist landscapes will surely increase in interest and value in the future.