Connecticut was home to some of the earliest and most significant art colonies in the country. The Hartford works feature many of America's finest painters who lived or worked in Connecticut.

Some of the American Impressionists from Connecticut represented in the exhibition were Emil Carlsen, Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson, Willard Metcalf, Theodore Robinson, Edward Rook, Edward Simmons, J.H. Twachtman, Dwight Tyron and J. Alden Weir.

East meets West, American Impressionism marks the first major exhibition of American Impressionism to include equal representation of the California school and the artists of the East.

California paintings, while increasingly coveted in their home state, are rarely shown in museums and galleries of the East and mid-West. The finest paintings by California Impressionists include works by Maurice Braun, Alson Clark, Percy Gray, Armin Hansen, Arthur Mathews, Edgar Payne, Hanson Puthuff, Arthur Rider, Guy Rose, Elmer and Marion Wachtel, and William Wendt.

Easily the most popular of art movements, owing to its richness of color, light, and surface texture, Impressionism will be revealed in its national scope in American art. East meets West American Impressionism will be a rare celebration of American art.