2020-05-19 Tue

The United States Mint honors the Weir Farm National Historic Site by issuing a beautiful five-ounce silver uncirculated coin. This coin is the second release of 2020 in the ‘America’s the Beautiful Quarters Program’.

Weir Farm National Historic Site was associated with the development of American Impressionism during the height of the artistic movement at the turn of the 19th century. The farm was home to three generations of American artists beginning with Julian Alden Weir, who acquired it in 1882. He was a leading figure in the development of American Impressionism. Here, amidst rocky fields and woodlands, he spent nearly four decades of painting. His artist friends and other luminaries often joined him at Weir Farm, which was a short train ride from New York City. After Weir, the artistic legacy was continued by his daughter, painter Dorothy Weir Young, and her husband, sculptor Mahonri Young, followed by New England painters Sperry and Doris Andrews. Weir Farm includes a 60-acre cultural landscape consisting of 15 historic structures including houses, barns, studios, and outbuildings.

The obverse features a 1932 restored portrait of George Washington. The reverse design portrays an artist, wearing a painter’s smock, painting outside Julian Alden Weir’s studio at Weir Farm. It is inspired by various images of the studio and Weir’s paintings created on the property, as well as descriptions of Weir and his fellow artists’ creative inspiration from the rural environment. Inscriptions are "WEIR FARM," "CONNECTICUT," "2020," "E PLURIBUS UNUM, " and “A NATIONAL PARK FOR ART.”

Image Courtesy: United States Mint