The Joan Whitney Payson Collection will return to the Colby Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine, beginning Sunday, February 13. The collection of 26 works, which will be on view through June 18, contains paintings by world-famous Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. On Sunday, February 20, Carl Little will lecture on "The Watercolors of John Singer Sargent" at 2:30 p.m. in Given Auditorium of the Bixler Art and Music Center. The lecture will be followed by an opening reception for the Payson Collection in the museum’s lobby.

Little is the author of several books including Edward Hopper’s New England (1993), Winslow Homer: His Art, His Light, His Landscapes (1997) and The Watercolors of John Singer Sargent (1999). His essays and reviews appear in Art New England, Town & Country and Art in America, where he was formerly associate editor.

Among the French artists in the Payson Collection are Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, J.A.D. Ingres, Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau and Alfred Sisley. Paintings, watercolors and drawings by Maurice Prendergast, John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler reflect American artists’ interest in the French Impressionist style. Two portraits by the 18th-century English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds and two works by Andrew Wyeth add to the range of the collection.

John Whitney Payson and his family moved the collection to the Portland Museum of Art in 1991. It is on loan to Colby College for one semester every two years.

Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free, and the museum is accessible to persons with disabilities. For additional information, please call (207) 872-3228.