Aldro Hibbard

Aldro Thompson Hibbard (August 25, 1886 – November 12, 1972) was an American plein air painter known for his landscape paintings, particularly his winter scenes in Vermont. Hibbard primarily worked with oil paint, as he found watercolor difficult to work with during winter months in the Vermont mountains. He spent much of his life in Rockport, Massachusetts.

Early life

Aldro Hibbard was born on August 25th 1886, in Falmouth, Massachusetts, to James Thompson Hibbard and Katherine Swift. He had an older sister, Adeline Hibbard. Raised in the Boston suburbs of Roxbury and Dorchester, Hibbard graduated from Dorchester High School in 1906, where he was captain of the baseball team.

During his youth, he spent summers with his family in Falmouth, a town in Massachusetts. Between 1911 and 1916, he played baseball for the Cottage Club, later known as the Falmouth's town team, which later became part of the Cape Cod Baseball League.

Hibbard enrolled in the Massachusetts Normal Art School (now Massachusetts College of Art and Design) in 1909, studying with Ernest Lee Major, Joseph DeCamp, and Frederic Andrew Bosley, painters known for their portraits and still-life works. Hibbard commuted daily from Dorchester, Boston, to attend classes six days a week and also took night classes. Hibbard completed the four-year program in three years and, in 1909, enrolled at the school of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston which is now known as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts, to continue his studies.

At the Museum School, he studied under Frank Weston Benson, Phillip Leslie Hale, and Edmund Charles Tarbell, instructors associated with the American Impressionist movement. After four years of study, Hibbard graduated in 1913 and received the Paige Traveling Scholarship.

With funding to travel to Europe, Hibbard departed Boston aboard the in September 1913, bound for Cobh, Ireland. He traveled through England, France, Spain, Morocco, and Italy, where he studied and sketched works by European masters, exploring both urban and rural landscapes.

Following the outbreak of World War I, Hibbard returned to England and, in November 1914, boarded the SS Arabic to return to Boston.

Career

The National Academy of Design awarded Hibbard the 1922 First Hallgarten Prize