ABSTRACT
P rior to SoHo, many ambitious American artists preferredto live in “artist colonies,” as they were called, where a dozen or two artists, customarily colleagues already, purchased empty land and constructed studios. Other purposeful artists settled in sparsely populated retreats, such as Fire Island, Provincetown, or Woodstock, establishing in those communities a culture more sympathetic to art and artists than could be found elsewhere in America. These artist colonies differ crucially from bohemias, which are communities, usually within an urban setting, hospitable to counter-bourgeois living. Indicatively, political radicals, often prominent in bohemias, are scarce in artists’ colonies.
