Grez-sur-Loing


Grez-sur-Loing is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France.

Sights

It is located 70 km south of Paris and is notable for the artists and musicians who have lived or stayed there. The painter Fernande Sadler became mayor and encouraged the community gathering paintings and she wrote about the artists there.
The Swedish artist Carl Larsson met his wife Karin Bergöö while they were both staying at Grez. Others include Irish artist Frank O'Meara, Swedish artists Karl Nordström, Carl Larsson, Emma Chadwick, Julia Beck and Bruno Liljefors as well as writer August Strindberg, the Danish and Norwegian members of the Skagen Painters, and Robert Louis Stevenson. American artists were John Singer Sargent, Francis Brooks Chadwick, Robert Vonnoh, Edward Simmons, Will Hicox Low, Theodore Robinson, Willard Metcalf, Bruce Crane, and Kenyon Cox. Grez is featured in many paintings by The Glasgow Boys, where the bridge over the river is clearly featured. They were resident in the village at the turn of the 20th century.
Musicians also migrated to Grez-sur-Loing. The English composer Frederick Delius lived here and dictated a number of works to his amanuensis, Eric Fenby, here. Their house was portrayed in the 1968 Ken Russell film Song of Summer, but it was filmed in England. The American soprano and folk song fieldworker Loraine Wyman spent several years here starting in 1928, following her retirement from singing.