While the history of the Cos Cob art colony has become well known to scholars of American Impressionism, its role in the development of American Modernism is less familiar. In December 1911 Elmer MacRae was among the group who founded the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in New York.
In the summer of 1896, Elmer MacRae arrived at the Holley Inn. He was a student from the Art Students League who was there for a class in outdoor painting, but he also found Constant Holley. They fell in love. From the beginning Constant encouraged Elmer to draw and paint flowers.
Constant attributed her love for arranging flowers to a Japanese gentleman staying at her home, probably Genjiro Yeto. She recalled when he placed a single red rose in an old decanter: “From this time on…flower arranging has always been my foremost interest.”
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