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The Spectacular Maine Coast
Artists' reception: Thursday, July 24th. 7-9 pm
Exhibited July 20 to August 15, 2007
"Few if any external influences have made themselves more potently felt in American art than the geographic one exhibited by the coast of Maine. There is something characteristically American typified by these rugged, rocky shores, which has been the inspiration of some of our greatest and most truly national paintings."
- Art Historian, Ralph Carey

Harrison Bird Brown (1831-1915)
Maine Coast c.1874
Oil on Canvas 9x15
in original ornate gold leaf frame 14x19
$6000 Framed

Harrison Bird Brown (1831-1915)
View of Grand Manan
Oil on Canvas 10x18
$5500 Framed
Harrison Bird Brown was born in 1831 in Portland, Maine, and is best known for his White Mountain landscapes and marine paintings of Maine's Casco Bay. By 1860, Brown was being praised as a leading American marine painter. Brown was one of the early artists to paint the coastline of Maine's Monhegan Island, where he depicted the headlands as awesome, mystical forces. Humanity versus nature, and the human relationship to nature, themes prevalent in mid and late-19th century literature and philosophy, figured frequently in his seascapes.
The coast of Maine was a favorite painting venue of Brown's for over thirty years. He depicted the wholesome outdoor environment of the state, with special fondness for the Casco Bay area and Grand Manan, an island off the New Brunswick, Canada coast. Brown also produced two widely distributed illustrations of Crawford Notch for the Maine Central Railroad in 1890.
Harrison Bird Brown exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York from 1858 to 1860, and at the Boston Athenaeum and Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. By 1892 he had become the best known native Maine painter of his time, and gained fame for himself and the state with a large canvas in the Maine pavilion of the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago. In 1892 he was elected president of the Portland Society of Art.

Alfred Thompson Bricher (1837-1908)
Figure in a Boat Near Shore
Monogrammed l.r., labels from Barridoff Galleries, Portland,
Watercolor and gouache en grisaille on paper,
sight size 2 3/8 x 6 in. framed
$2800
An Associate of the National Academy, Alfred Thompson Bricher was known especially for his serene, luminist seascapes, reminscent of works by Fitz Hugh Lane and Martin Johnson Heade. Born April 10,1837, Portsmouth, NH, Bricher grew up in Newburyport, MA. Largely self-taught, Bricher studied art at Lowell Institute, Boston in the 1850's. In the 1860s he followed his contemporaries to the White Mountains, and was active in Boston and Newburyport, MA until 1868 when he moved to New York. He executed his best work during the 1870s-80s when he spent many summers painting on the coasts of Massachusetts, Maine (Monhegan Island), and Rhode Island (1871-76), as well on Long Island, especially at Southampton.
Bricher was a significant second-generation Hudson River School landscapist and marine painter who is considered to be the last of the relevant American luminists. He is best known for his marine paintings depicting New England shorelines, in which crashing waves show the dynamic forces of nature.With ease and finesse he captured the natural ambiance around the ocean and its coasts and the artist’s reverence for the presence of what is before him is apparent.
Today A.T. Bricher is considered one of the finest marine painters of his era, and his work is in great demand because each of his canvases and watercolors show resplendently and with confident brushwork how nature looked during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Sunset, Monhegan
Jay Hall Connaway (1893-1970)
Signed "Connaway" l.r., titled reverse.
Oil on board, 24 x 29 in.
Born in Liberty, Indiana, Jay Hall Connaway was fascinated by coastal life and marine scenery, an attraction that had profound effects on his life and artwork. After periodically studying at the Art Institute of Indianapolis and at the Art Students League with William Merritt Chase, Connaway traveled throughout the United States.ndertake further study in Paris at the Academie Julian and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Encouraged by Robert Macbeth (Macbeth Gal., NYC) and artists Paul Dougherty, Emil Carlsen, and Frederick Waugh, he spent 1922-25 painting at Head Harbor, ME. From 1929-31 he was painting in Brittany and Paris, sponsored by Macbeth and Milch. Returning in the midst of the Depression, he and his family settled at Monhegan Island, ME year-round from 1931 until 1947. when they moved to Dorset and then Pawlet, VT. A popular landscape painter with robust brushwork, he gave lectures and demonstrations around the country. He ran a summer school at Monhegan until 1947, and at Dorset, VT until 1966. His work was featured in an unprecedented 85 one-man shows, evidence of his successful and widely renowned career as a skilled sea painter.

Asa Grant Randall (1869-1948)
"Summer Afternoon at Boothbay"
Oil on canvasboard, 12 x16
Asa Grant Randall founded the Boothbay Art Colony in Maine in the early 1900's. Randall, from Waterboro, Maine, first visited Boothbay in 1905 and loved the area so much, he was back the following summer, launching what became "The Commonwealth Colony of Art and Industry." Here's how he described the area in a later brochure about his school:
"Boothbay Harbor, the beautiful town by the sea, is the gem of the whole coast. It has been said of this town that nowhere is there a spot with the air more odorous with the scent of the evergreen forest mingled with the clear, bracing salty breath of the ocean. Nowhere can the skies be bluer or the waters clearer. Nowhere is the scenery more beautiful or the surroundings more peaceful."

Nathaniel Dirk (1895-1961)
Summer Sails, c.1937.
Watercolor.
Image size 8 x 10, mat size 11 x 14
$900.
Nathaniel Dirk studied at the Art Students League with Max Weber and Kenneth Hayes Miller and in Paris with Fernand Leger. Beginning in 1939 he taught at the League and lectured there on "Color for the Artist" from 1957 through 1960. He was president of the Cape Ann Society of Modern Art and a member of the Rockport Art Association. He exhibited widely, with thirteen one-man shows in New York City alone. Primarily known as a watercolorist, painting in a style similar to, but not as abstract, as that of John Marin. His work is represented in the collections of the Smithsonian, the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Academy of Design and the Art Institute of Chicago.
(From: Pam Koob, Curator, The Art Students League of New York)

Roger Deering
Goat Island Light From Cape Porpoise, Maine
14" x 18" Oil/Canvas
$2000.

Stanley Wingate Woodward (American, 1890-1970)
When the Wind Blows West
Oil on Canvas 12 X 16 in.
Stanley Wingate Woodward was a Rockport school painter of marine subjects. He was the author of "Adventures in Marine Painting" and "Marine Painting in Oil and Watercolor" He exhibited widely ( the Penn-sylvania Academy, Corcoran Gallery, National Academy, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, etc.) He was awarded many prizes, National Academy, American Watercolor Society, Baltimore Watercolor Society, Rockport Art Association, North Shore AA, etc. His work is in The Boston Museum, Fort Worth, Univ. of Michigan , Bowdoin College, Amherst College, etc.

Ken Knowles
Acadian Ledges
24 x 20 Oil on Linen
$3850 Framed
Burnt Cove, Maine
Dennis Poirier
16 x 20 Oil on Canvas
$2600
Dennis Poirier grew up in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He began his studies Butera School of Art in Boston, then returned to Cape Ann to study with John C. Terelak and Ted Goerschner at the newly formed Gloucester Academy of Fine Arts. Later he moved to New York City to study at the Arts Student League winning the Charles J. Romans Memorial Award at his very first national exhibit at the Allied Artists of America Show.
Dennis is a member of many prestigious art associations including the Oil Painters of America, North Shore Arts Association,Rockport Art Association, the Copley Society of Art (a Copley Artist), the Hudson Valley Arts Association, and the Academic Artists Association.

Donald Allen Mosher
Otter Cliffs, MDI
Oil on Board 16x20
$4400
Donald Mosher grew up on the North Shore and has lived in Rockport since 1980. A descendant of ship builders from Nova Scotia and farmers from Maine, Don is naturally drawn to the power of the sea and the tranquility of the New England countryside. His interest in art began after winning his first award at the age of eight, and he has since won over 200 awards for his work. A 1968 graduate of Vesper George School of Art, where he met his wife Christine, Don has been a painting instructor and demonstrator and has been featured in several national publications including Yankee and American Artist Magazine. His paintings hang in the permanent collections of large corporations, institutions, banks, and private homes throughout the United States and abroad including the Peabody Museum, Portland Art museum, and the State House in Boston.
Marian Gonsalves McMahon
LeVeque Boathouse
Oil on Canvas 12 x 18
$1800 framed
Marian Gonsalves McMahon is a graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art in 1989 and former Instructor of Fine Art & Design at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and at The Art Center of Endicott College in Beverly Massachusetts. Upon relocating with her two beloved dogs to Blue Hill, Maine from the Greater-Metro-Boston Area in 1997 she brought her sketch pads, watercolors, oils, brushes, camera equipment and her love of art. Her ability to capture classic moments in time with her lense and re-invent them as timeless hand painted works in oil sets her apart as a unique creative force. Since 1997 Marian’s one woman art shows and her participation in more than a dozen juried collections in as many years has showcased her work throughout Downeast Maine in galleries such as, “The Art Of The Sea Gallery” and “The Blue Hill Bay Gallery”. Other gallery displays have taken place in other coastal town such as: Thomaston, Camden, Northport and the Schoodic Peninsula.

Joan Colomer
Coastal Inlet
12x24
$1800
Isle au Haut
Karen Cashman
9 x 12 Oil on Canvas
$600 Framed
Having grown up in a family of oil painters who spent summers in Maine, Karen continues this tradition by returning to Maine every year. She has painted landscapes and coastal scenes en plein air for over 15 years, accumulating knowledge of nature for work in her studio as well. A Connecticut resident, Karen received her formal education at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts and has participated in workshops with Mike Graves, Chris Magadini, and David Lussier. An Elected Artist member of Lyme Art Association and Kent Art Association, she is also a member of Connecticut Plein Air Painters Society, Deer Isle Artists Association, Housatonic Art League, Society of Creative Artists of Newtown and Washington Art Association.

Bruce Backman Turner (b. 1941)
Monhegan Village
Oil on board. 12 X 16 in.
In 1970 Turner began exhibiting his work throughout New England and New York. His work is in private collections throughout the U.S., Canada, England, France, Belgium, Sweden, Saudi Arabia and Australia. Bruce has received over 50 national and regional awards in his career, and is listed in Who's Who in American Art. His work has appeared in "American Artist Magazine", "Monhegan - The Artist's Island" , "The Best of Oil Paintings", and Grumbacher's "Palette Talk". Member: Am Artists Prof League; Copley Soc Boston; North Shore Arts Asn; Chautauqua Art Asn; Salmagundi Club.

Diane Beem
Cliff Bottom and Fog
Oil on paper 30 x 22
Diane Beem studied Abstract Expressionist painting at Hartford Art School in Hartford, Connecticut, and has been painting professionally for over ten years. She currently lives and works in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
“My work is about the sensual aspect of experiencing nature, and creating pictorial memories in paint. I am providing abstracted interpretations of my subject matter through the use of bold strokes, dashes, dots, and attention to the overall effect of form and color.
My most recent work focuses on Maine landscape and still life subject matter as seen through the filter of memory. The experience that I take away form being in nature shifts and changes shape in my mind. What I actually see becomes fragmented, pulled apart and reconstructed. In retrospect, feelings are heightened and intensified. Senses collide and conjure up something familiar, but liberated from reality.”

Day's End
(oil on canvas, 32" x 32")
by Gudrun Kiefer Tarr
$1600
Living on the Maine coast overlooking Penobscot Bay, and sailing the Maine waters during the summer months, Gudrun Kiefer Tarr’s work reflects her ongoing fascination with the ever-changing and mysterious interaction of light, ocean, and land. On the water, the constant of a horizon in the seemingly infinite space becomes a very special visual focus, as is evident in much of her work.
A long-time art educator, Gudrun was born in Germany and studied fine art at the prestigious Kunstakademie Dusseldorf and in the United States at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where she received a University Fellowship, and at the University of Maine. In addition to heading the art department of the Bangor school system, she has served as a model art curriculum consultant to a number of school districts and was the recipient of the 1993 Distinguished Service Award of the Maine College of Art.

Blue Hill, 1850
Brad Betts
9x12 Oil on Canvasboard
$1200
Brad paints a variety of landscape scenes from Maine’s dramatic shoreline. His paintings reflect his deep appreciation for the works of many fine artists, including Edward Hopper and the nautical scenes of John Stobart. Brad has been an artist for over 15 years and received his education from the University of Maine in Orono. He comes from a long line of artists that includes his father and grandparents. He has studied with Carolyn Blish and Don Demers and is a member of the American Society of Marine Artists.

Seawall
Oil on Linen 16 x 12
Andre Lucero
$1250
Andre paints the Maine landscape by heading out at dawn off the beaten track and discovering the charm the coast has used to seduce painters from Cole to Kent. He is an associate member of the Oil Painters of America and a member of Mid Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association, and The Jack Woodson Sketch Club (plein air painting group, Richmond, Virginia).
After earning a BFA, cum laude, in 1989, Andre worked for more than a decade as a free-lance illustrator. During that time, his illustrations appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Washington Times and many other publications. Despite widespread acclaim (1995 Virginia Press Association Best of Show Award and the 1994 Award of Excellence from the Art Directors' Club of Metropolitan Washington, D.C.), Andre decided to leave the field of illustration and devote his full attention to his first love, painting. Andre Lucero lives and maintains a studio near Richmond, Virginia.

Endless Rhythms
oil on canvas, 12" x 24"
William Marvin
$1400
William Marvin is privileged to be able to capture the ever-changing moods of nature, out in the open, fresh and unspoiled. Bill attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena taking extensive courses in design, drawing, painting and illustration. Upon graduating with honors in 1974 he came to Chicago to begin a challenging career as a graphic designer. Bill started showing his landscapes in 1996 and immediately began to draw attention from collectors. His work embodies dynamic compositions and an impressionistic use of color. The results are paintings that are vibrant with light and energy. He has painted throughout the Midwest and the Southwest, and most recently the Maine Coast and Acadia National Park. Bill’s artwork hangs in private and corporate collections throughout the United States.

Endurance
by William Marvin
12" x 9"
$800

Rocks and Shoals, Monhegan
watercolor, 14" x 21.5"
Bonnie Alpander
$850
Maine native Bonnie Alpander graduated from the University of Maine, Orono with a BS degree in Art Education. She also took advantage of several years abroad to visit museums and study art in Turkey, France and the Netherlands. Drawing upon this background in the Fine Arts, a clear influence of contemporary landscape artists is revealed in her watercolors, as she continues to develop her own unique style. “My greatest love is to paint on location, discovering new colors, patterns, and rhythms while capturing the intimacy of nature." Her love of plein air painting is expressed by annual pilgrimages to Acadia, Monhegan, and destinations along the Maine Coast.
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Stop by and visit the gallery anytime during the summer or for the opening reception on Friday, July 20th, 7-9 pm
See the calendar for future exhibitions.
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