Call of the Coast: Art
Colonies of New England at the Portland Museum of Art
June 24 - October 12, 2009
Gallery object labels for the exhibition
Yellow Walls Section 3
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- George Bellows
- United States, 1882-1925
- MATINICUS, 1916
- oil on canvas
- Bequest of Elizabeth Noyce, 1996.38.1
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- The opportunity for George Bellows to go to Monhegan
arose in 1911, when Robert Henri invited him along on his first trip back
to the island since 1903. On seeing Monhegan, Bellows wrote to his wife,
"This Island is endless in its wonderful variety. It's possessed of
enough beauty to supply a continent," adding, "I could stay here
and work for years if you were here. This place is an eternal subject."
In fact, he did return to Monhegan for two more summers, until concerns
about the island's vulnerability with the onset of World War I kept him
and his family on the mainland, first in Ogunquit and then, in 1916, in
Camden. From Camden, Bellows set off on his own, exploring the island of
Matinicus. During nearly a month there, Bellows used a fish house on the
harbor as a studio, producing many views of the working waterfront.
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- Abraham J. Bogdanove
- United States, born Russia, 1886-1946
- ROCKY COAST, circa 1930
- oil on canvas mounted on board
- Gift of Owen W. and Anna H. Wells, 2001.83.3
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- Born in Minsk and raised in New York City, Bogdanove
parlayed his artistic training at the Cooper Union, the National Academy
of Design, and the Columbia University School of Architecture into a successful
career as a mural painter. But soon after his first trip to Maine in 1915,
his interests changed from historical and allegorical scenes to landscape.
A visit to Monhegan in 1918 crystallized this new artistic vision, and
by the 1920s, views of Monhegan constituted the bulk of Bogdanove's artistic
output. The artist visited Monhegan annually every year until his death,
painting extensively and becoming a pillar of the artistic community there.
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- Jay Hall Connaway
- United States, 1893-1970
- GULL ROCK AT HEADLANDS, 1948
- oil on canvas board
- Gift of Owen W. Wells and Anna H. Wells, 2003.43.18
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- Although the Indiana-born Connaway first visited Maine
in the early 1920s, when he painted near Jonesport, his long association
with Monhegan did not begin until 1931. In that year Connaway and his new
wife returned to the United States after an extended period at the artist's
colony in Pont-Aven, France. They sought to re-create some of that communal
creative experience by living on Monhegan year-round and founding the Connaway
Art School in 1939. For seventeen years they summered and wintered on the
remote island, raising their daughter there and enjoying the varying ambience
of community and solitude.
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- George Daniell
- United States, 1911-2002
- GROUP BY FISH HOUSE, 1936
- lithographic crayon and crayon on wove paper
- Gift of George Daniell and the Aucocisco Gallery, 2001.6.2
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- Daniell first came to Maine in 1937. As an artist he
followed a well-worn path north from attending classes at the Art Students
League in New York City to sitting in on Bernard Karfiol's course at the
Ogunquit School of Painting and Sculpture and eventually finding his way
to Monhegan. Drawn to the rugged individuals he found there, Daniell produced
a photo essay of life on the island and sketched a number of salient moments
as well.
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- George Daniell
- United States, 1911-2002
- FISH HOUSE AND SEA, 1936
- gelatin silver print
- Gift of Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., 2001.48.2
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- Daniell is best remembered as a portraitist and photojournalist
for major magazines such as Time, Life, and Scribner's.
Known internationally for his images of a young Sophia Loren, Daniell also
photographed Audrey Hepburn, Georgia O'Keeffe, John Marin, Tennessee Williams,
and a host of other celebrities in the mid-20th century. So strong is the
narrative quality of his Monhegan photographs, they can themselves be considered
portraits of the island.
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- Charles Ebert
- United States, 1873-1959
- UNTITLED (MONHEGAN HARBOR), circa 1925
- oil on canvas
- Gift of Peter H. Davidson, 1983.418
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- Certain places hold great currency in the history of
American art. In the 19th century, an artist hoping to be taken seriously
as a landscape painter needed to paint Mount Washington in New Hampshire,
Niagara Falls in New York, or the Natural Bridge in Virginia. By the early
20th century, Monhegan joined the list. Ebert, an Old Lyme impressionist,
hewed to an anti-modern worldview and framed his view of the harbor in
a way that de-emphasized the fishing shacks and ferry landing in favor
of an oblique glimpse out to open water.
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- Charles Ebert
- United States, 1873-1959
- FOOT OF THE CLIFFS, circa 1929
- oil on panel
- Florence Griswold Museum. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert
H. Bartels, 1978.7.10
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- Denizens of Greenwich and, later, Old Lyme, Charles and
Mary Ebert made summer trips to Maine's Monhegan Island beginning in 1909.
In Foot of the Cliffs, Ebert brought his high key impressionist
palette to bear on a primal New England scene, the meeting place of rock
and Atlantic wave. In this way, he merged the colors of the Connecticut
plein air tradition with the drama of Maine's modernist imagery.
In later years, the Eberts would begin to winter in Florida, yet they frequently
returned to Monhegan to paint.
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- Charles Ebert
- United States, 1873-1959
- MONHEGAN HEADLANDS, 1909
- oil on canvas
- Florence Griswold Museum. Gift of Miss Elisabeth Ebert,
1977.18.1
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- Charles Ebert had been painting full-time for only a
few years before creating Monhegan Headlands. In the 1890s Ebert
had studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, the Art Students League in
New York, and the Académie Julian in Paris. He tried with little
success to make a living as a freelance illustrator before landing a steady
job as the political cartoonist for Life magazine. After moving
to Greenwich, Connecticut, in about 1900, Ebert began to study with the
impressionist John Henry Twachtman at Cos Cob, and in 1903 Ebert's wife,
Mary Roberts, another Twachtman student, convinced him to abandon illustration
for landscape painting. The couple made regular trips to Monhegan beginning
in 1909.
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- Ernest Fiene
- United States, born Germany, 1894-1965
- LOBSTERMAN'S GEAR NO. 1, 1950
- oil on canvas
- Gift of Owen W. and Anna H. Wells, 2008.43.11
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- Fiene studied at the National Academy of Design and the
Art Students League where he developed a talent for printmaking under instructors
Joseph Pennell and Charles Locke. From 1938 to 1964, he served on the faculty
of the Art Students League, and through connections there, he became associated
with the Ogunquit School of Painting and Sculpture. Fiene spent two summers
in Ogunquit in the 1950s, traveling to and painting in other Maine locations,
including Monhegan. Lobsterman's Gear graphically illustrates the
modernist interest in essentializing the subject by reducing an individual
to a series of symbolic icons.
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- Ernest Fiene
- United States, born Germany, 1894-1965
- FISHERMEN, MONHEGAN, 1952
- oil on canvas
- Gift of Owen W. Wells and Anna H. Wells, 2007.24.5
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- The German-born Fiene spent two summers in the 1950s
teaching at the Ogunquit School of Painting and Sculpture, founded by Hamilton
Easter Field. During that time he painted in other Maine locations, including
Monhegan Island. This painting graphically represents Monhegan's harbor
through the filter of the artist's own modernist sensibility. Fiene has
exaggerated certain landscape forms and articulated the scene as a jumble
of angled structures and landscape forms, stressing the jagged forms of
the rocks that echo the "V" shape of the flying gulls, the dories,
the angled roofs of the fishing shacks, and the lobster buoys drying in
the sun.
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- James Fitzgerald
- United States, 1899-1971
- ISLAND INN REFLECTED, circa 1964
- watercolor and gesso on paper
- Gift of Anne and Edgar Hubert, 1992.9.10
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- James Fitzgerald had achieved moderate success as a painter
in Boston and California in the 1940s, when he set up a summer residence
on Monhegan. There, he increasingly suffused himself in his painting and
in the stunning natural landscape of Monhegan. An industrious worker in
his studio, Fitzgerald was equally tireless when it came to his daily regimen
of standing at the edge of the headlands for hours at a time to study the
interplay between the rocks and surf, light and shadows.
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- James Fitzgerald
- United States, 1899-1971
- BLACK HEAD, MONHEGAN, circa 1954
- graphite and watercolor on paper
- Gift of Anne and Edgar Hubert, 1992.9.8
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- Blackhead -- the legendary northern cliffs of Monhegan
Island -- rise 150 feet above the Atlantic. Accessible from a variety of
vantage points high and low, the view has attracted artists of all stripes,
from the late 19th century to the present day. Both Rockwell Kent and Edward
Hopper reckoned with Blackhead from a distance. Fitzgerald moved in close
and found the cliffs ideally suited to his inky palette and muscular use
of the brush.
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- James Fitzgerald
- United States, 1899-1971
- FRANK PIERCE, circa 1968
- oil on canvas
- Gift of Anne and Edgar Hubert, 1992.9.11
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- Fisherman and owner of the Island Inn, Frank Pierce was
an appealing subject for many of the artists and photographers who worked
on Monhegan in the middle of the twentieth century. In this portrait Fitzgerald
captures the stoic posture of the man at work at the water's edge, beleaguered
by diving gulls, with the island of Manana looming in the background. Fitzgerald
produced far fewer oils than watercolors during his lifetime, partly due
to the time and expense involved with the slow-drying, costly medium. When
he did use oils, however, he became highly involved with his materials,
refusing to thin them with turpentine so as not to dilute their vibrancy.
Fitzgerald was also a gilder and made many of his own frames, their simple
lines echoing the spare elements of his art.
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- Murray Hantman
- United States, 1904-1999
- BLACKHEAD, 1951
- oil on canvas
- Bequest of the artist, 2005.27.5
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- Murray Hantman's artistic development parallels the sea
change in American art that began in the years between the world wars and
reached an apex with the abstract expressionist movement. Trained at the
Detroit Museum of Art School and the Art Students League, Hantman became
involved in the mural-painting movement and produced paintings for the
Federal Art Project. A visit to Monhegan Island in 1945, however, marked
a dynamic shift in Hantman's mode of painting. In an extended series of
gouaches (opaque watercolors) of Monhegan's rocks and headlands executed
in the late 1940s, he reduced the rocky landscape to its most elemental
forms. Blackhead is the culmination of Hantman's experiments with
light and color to describe the Monhegan landscape. With just three saturated
tones, Hantman conveys the distinctive sweep and rise of Monhegan's headlands.
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- Robert Henri
- United States, 1865-1929
- THE GRAY WOODS, 1911
- oil on panel
- Gift of Pendred E. Noyce, 1997.3.1
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- New York teacher Robert Henri considered summer his "great
season of work," in which he retreated to rural settings to concentrate
on his own art. Between 1903 and 1918, Monhegan Island was a favored destination.
He encouraged his most promising students at the New York School of Art
-- including Edward Hopper, George Bellows, and Rockwell Kent, among others
-- to join him there to paint and establish a community of modernist artists.
For Henri and his students, Maine was a foil to life in New York. They
sought simplicity, purity, and honesty as a counterpoint to the complexity
of the modern city. They were drawn to Monhegan, in part, because it was
conducive to work; the absence of the distractions of everyday life and
the stimulus of new surroundings permitted sustained concentration. Monhegan
also represented the sort of "primitive" locale to which Henri
was drawn throughout his career, finding in it a sense of continuity and
tradition.
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- Robert Henri
- United States, 1865-1929
- BARNACLES ON ROCKS, 1903
- oil on panel
- Bequest of Elizabeth Noyce, 1996.38.21
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- Henri was driven to marine painting, in part, by his
admiration for the paintings of Winslow Homer, observing in them "the
whole vastness of the sea, a vastness as impressive and uncontrollable
as the sea itself." He sought to achieve a similarly unified view
of the Atlantic, but with a modernist's eye and technique of vigorous brushwork.
Henri committed himself to painting directly from nature, using small,
rigid panels that could easily be carried over Monhegan's uneven turf.
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- Edward Hopper
- United States, 1882-1967
- MONHEGAN HOUSES, MAINE, circa 1916
- oil on panel
- Museum purchase with support from the Bernstein Acquisition
Fund, Board Designated Acquisition Funds, Director's and Curators' Hamill
Acquisition Fund, Friends of the Collection, Homburger Acquisition Fund,
Osher Acquisition Fund, and an anonymous gift in memory of the Bears, 2007.1
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- Like many of those who painted on Monhegan in the early
twentieth century, Edward Hopper studied at the New York School of Art
under Robert Henri, whom he described as "the most influential teacher
I ever had." His first encounters with Maine's landscape were in Ogunquit,
where he spent the summers of 1914 and 1915 (Henri and George Bellows were
there as well) painting country roads, local buildings, and the rocky coastline.
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- In the summer of 1916 and for the next several years,
Hopper ventured farther north to Monhegan, one of the few artists to go
there during World War I. In Monhegan he encountered a dramatically different
Maine landscape from what he had seen and painted in Ogunquit. Nevertheless,
he continued to turn his artistic eye toward the built environments that
had always drawn his attention, in New York and elsewhere. This oil sketch
shows Hopper's characteristic interest in mass rather than the dynamic
forces that attracted his colleagues Henri and Bellows. Like them, however,
Hopper used small panels such as this one, which he could easily carry
all over the island's landscape and townscape, facilitating the practice
of painting and inhabiting a scene at the same time.
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- Eric Hudson
- United States, 1864-1932
- MANANA, undated
- oil on canvas
- Gift of Mrs. Eric Hudson, 1934.5
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- Although he studied at Boston's School of the Museum
of Fine Arts, where a polished academic style predominated in the final
years of the nineteenth century, Hudson developed an aesthetic that was
uniquely his own. His palette of deep yet vivid tones is coupled with a
thick, layered application of paint, resulting in a crusted surface that
is almost architectural in feel, like the crumbling texture of masonry
or pilings emerging from the water. Here, the enclosing presence of Monhegan's
geography-the limited expanse of the protected harbor and the looming monolith
of Manana in the background-serves to distinguish Hudson's work from that
of his contemporaries on the island who reveled in the ocean's expanse.
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- Eric Hudson
- United States, 1864-1932
- MONHEGAN HARBOR, circa 1898
- oil on canvas
- Gift of Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., 2008.31
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- Boston-based Eric Hudson was in the vanguard of artists
who painted on Monhegan, first visiting there in 1897, fully six years
before Robert Henri made his own initial pioneering visit. Hudson soon
built a home on the harbor, where he could have an unimpeded view of the
moored boats, which were his favorite subject. Like the boats themselves,
Hudson's paintings demonstrate an elegance of construction and an emphasis
on color; light and dark elements are conveyed across the picture surface
in a way that is balanced yet animated.
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- Murray Hantman
- United States, 1904-1999
- KITCHEN, 1953
- oil on canvas
- Bequest of the artist, 2005.27.6
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- Hantman's remarkable career witnessed the rise of abstraction
to a dominant place in American visual culture. His initial Monhegan scenes
explored the island's legendary geology with robust modern brushwork. In
the years following World War II, however, he turned to seeing the island
and its inhabitants as shapes, symbols, and colors. Kitchen is an
early abstraction where Hantman has pared the interior of his cabin down
to essential forms representing a gas light fixture, bead board, and linoleum
tile.
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- Wilson Henry Irvine
- United States, 1869-1936
- MONHEGAN BAY, MAINE, circa 1914
- oil on canvas
- Florence Griswold Museum. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. George
M. Yeager in Honor of the Centennial, 1999.10
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- Monhegan Bay, Maine portrays
a stark change in the economy and daily life of this remote island some
ten miles off the Maine coast. Where cod and lobster were once processed,
now children and young girls play in the waves. Where ships collected the
sea's harvest for transport to urban markets, city dwellers now disembark
for a pleasant summer day visiting the "quaint" island. Paintings
like this helped popularize Monhegan as a rustic summer resort in the 20th-century
American imagination.
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- Rockwell Kent
- United States, 1882-1971
- WRECK OF THE D. T. SHERIDAN,
- circa 19491953
- oil on canvas
- Bequest of Elizabeth Noyce, 1996.38.25
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- Rockwell Kent was the first student that Robert Henri
encouraged to visit Monhegan. He arrived in 1905. Kent was as inspired
by Monhegan's residents as by its dramatic and varied scenery. As he wrote
to Henri, "I love the fishermen here. I never in my life saw such
a fine kind-hearted set of people. I'd like to be one of them." With
that wish in mind, Kent settled on Monhegan for the better part of the
next five years, painting furiously and supporting himself through odd
jobs as a carpenter, well driller, and lobster fisherman.
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- Wreck of the D. T. Sheridan
dates to Rockwell Kent's return to Monhegan Island after a thirty-year
absence. It exemplifies his mature style in its intense palette, crisp
forms, and emphatic two-dimen-sionality. The painting depicts the rusting
hull of a steel tugboat that ran aground at Lobster Cove in a dense fog
in November 1948. None of the drama of that event is apparent in Kent's
image, yet in its skeletal stillness it powerfully conveys humanity's subordination
to the forces of nature.
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- Louis Lozowick
- United States, born Russia, 1892-1973
- MONHEGAN ISLAND, 1946
- lithograph
- Museum purchase with support from the Friends of the
Collection, the Jensen Memorial Acquisition Fund, and the Print Acquisition
Fund, 2009.5.1
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- Lozowick immigrated to the United States from Russia
in 1906 and enrolled in art classes at the National Academy of Design and
Ohio State University. He was entranced by scenes of American industrial
might and traveled across the country painting images of steel mills in
Pittsburg, copper mines in Butte, and lumber yards in Seattle. He is best
known for his streamlined urban scenes, however, and for contributing to
the revival of interest in lithography among graphic artists. In 1946 he
traveled to the coast of Maine and found inspiration in the rugged geologic
formations.
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- De Hirsh Margules
- United States, born Romania, 1899-1965
- UNTITLED (MONHEGAN ISLAND HARBOR), 1947
- watercolor on paper
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harrison D. Horblit, 2003.21.2
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- Margules was a larger than life fixture in the Greenwich
Village scene in New York City at mid-century. A painter, poet, and newspaper
reporter, he embodied the bohemian spirit of the modernist social set.
Born in Romania, his parents were prominent in the Yiddish theater. The
family's penchant for dramatics can been seen in the artist's full name
of Isaac Edward Cecil De Hirsh De Tannerier Gilmont Margules. Raised in
the United States, Margules initially studied in Paris before returning
to New York City and meeting Alfred Stieglitz and John Marin around 1929.
Calling these well-known figures "my academy," Margules developed
a flamboyant modern style that prized movement and color.
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- De Hirsh Margules
- United States, born Romania, 1899-1965
- LIGHTHOUSE, 1947
- watercolor on paper
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harrison D. Horblit, 2003.21.1
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- Margules, known for his vibrant views of New York City,
adopted the vitality and drama of his mentor John Marin when working in
watercolor in Maine. Confidence and gesture is everything in this medium
where a single brushstroke can evoke a mood or atmospheric condition. The
bright sun of Monhegan proved especially seductive to Margules and his
boldly colored abstract views capture the dazzling "feel" of
the island.
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- Leo Meissner
- United States, 1895-1977
- CREVASSE, 1934
- linocut on wove paper
- Museum purchase, 1985.17
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- Meissner studied in New York at the Art Students League.
Like so many students at that bastion of modernist thought, he found his
way to Monhegan in the mid-20th century. Unlike most, he then summered
on the island for nearly 50 years. The geological details of Monhegan captivated
Meissner and proved to be particularly suited to his meticulous style.
Meissner began his printmaking career by executing a series of linocuts
in 1924, but soon turned to wood engraving-a traditional medium that he
updated with a streamlined, 20th-century vision.
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- Edward Potthast
- United States, 1857-1927
- SEASCAPE (MONHEGAN), undated
- oil on canvas board
- Gift of Owen W. Wells and Anna H. Wells, 2003.43.10
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- Potthast frequented the coastal art colonies of New England,
visiting Annisquam, Gloucester, and Provincetown before finding his way
to Monhegan late in life. A letter that he wrote in 1926 sums up the attractions
of the island off Port Clyde. "The most striking feature," he
noted, "is that there are no automobiles, only a truck and one horse."
Seeking authentic experience and the quiet life, Potthast found it on Monhegan.
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