Exploring the Farnsworth Art Museum – Rockland Maine

It was an off and on rainy day so an indoor attraction was in order… I’d researched the possibilities in advance, so I had a plan for this eventuality. 

This is the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland Maine.  This art museum focuses on American art and its permanent collection includes works by a wide variety of artists.  Four of the galleries are devoted to contemporary art. 

William Farnsworth opened a general store in Rockland in the 1840s.  Involvement in the limestone industry soon followed.  By the 1850s, Farnsworth owned the store, an interest in the quarries, kilns to process the lime and a number of ships to transport the finished product.  He also had a number of local real estate holdings. 

Lucy Farnsworth, the last of the family line, died in 1935 at the age of 97.  Given the family money that she’d inherited and her own success in business, Lucy left a considerable estate.  Most of it was designated to be used to establish the William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum.  The museum was completed and opened in the summer of 1948.

One of the first exhibits we encountered was one for children.  These expressive and lively looking puppets grabbed my attention.

Art work by local students was also on display in this gallery.  Since my better half was so focused on lobster, I thought that I’d include this appealing work of art…

I’ll try to give readers a sampling of the variety of art works on display at the Farnsworth Art Museum.  This is “Jungle Pool” by Dahlov Ipcar.  She was born in 1917…the daughter of modernist painters.  This oil on canvas was completed in 1965.  Ipcar lived to be 100 years old.  The museum had 11 of her works on display.

This painting is titled “Eastport and Passamaquoddy”.  William Henry Bartlett was a British artist who was best known for his many drawings that were rendered into steel engravings.  His finely detailed engravings were published uncolored with text, via 30 monthly installments from 1837 to 1839.  It was titled “American Scenery; or Land, Lake, and River: Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature.  American Scenery”. 

The Dragon Head and Horse Head are just 2 of the animal sculptures that comprise the “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads” that was created by artist Ai Weiwei.  This installation was inspired by the water clock-fountain at the former Old Summer Palace in China. 

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist and political activist.  His father was the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics.  Ai has investigated Chinese government corruption and cover-ups, resulting in his infamous and well publicized arrest in 2011.  He was held for 81 days without any charges being filed.  He left China in 2015 and now lives in Berlin Germany.

Farnsworth’s primary mission is to celebrate Maine’s role in American art.  It has one of the nation’s largest collection of paintings by the Wyeth family.  N.C. Wyeth (1882 – 1945), Andrew Wyeth (1917 – 2009), and Jamie Wyeth (b. 1945) are all featured in the museum. 

I’ve only featured a few in this post on my blogsite.  Much to Laurie and my pleasure, there were many Wyeth paintings on exhibit.  This tempera on panel painting by Andrew Wyeth is titled “Charlie Ervine”.   

For a bit of variety, here is a mosaic constructed by Emily Lansingh Muir. (1904 – 2002) This mosaic was completed in 1960 and its entitled “Stonington”.  It’s a tribute to the people in the town (Stonington) where she lived and thrived. 

The title of this oil on canvas painting is “Land and Development of New England”.  It was completed by Marguerite Zorach (1887 – 1968) in 1937.  The painting is filled with details of family and work life in Maine and it celebrates the abundant resources of the state.  FYI…Marguerite was Dahlov (Zorach) Ipcar’s mother, whose painting “Jungle Pool” I featured previously.  

More variety… This is a ‘crazy quilt’ created by an unknown artist/homemaker ca. 1880.  Pieces of silk and velvet with silk thread were pieced, appliqued and painted to make this wild design.  We actually own a crazy quilt that was passed down in my family.  Unfortunately, unless carefully conserved, silk tends to deteriorate badly.

This oil on canvas painting is titled “Owl’s Head Light – Rockland Maine”.  It was completed ca. 1856 by Fitz Henry Lane. (1804 – 1865) In addition to his paintings, Lane was a printmaker of a style that would later be termed as ‘Luminism’, for its use of pervasive light. 

I’ve added Lane to my list of artists who create great paintings of ships!  You can check out some of Lane’s ship paintings on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitz_Henry_Lane.

This is another painting by Fitz Henry Lane.  This one (ca. 1859) is titled “Camden Mountains from the South Entrance to the Harbor”.  It really shows a portrait of a local traditional maritime economy that would soon pass into history.  The vessel is a heavily laden Maine lumber schooner.  Note the bare Camden Hills in the photo…logged bare.  That fact plus the coming of the railroads doomed this business.

Rockwell Kent (1882 – 1871) produced both of these oil paintings.  They demonstrate how his painting style and vision changed over the years.  At the left there is “Maine Coast” (ca. 1907) with “Seal Hunters” (ca. 1930s) at the right.  From 1905 to 1910, Kent lived on Maine’s Monhegan Island.  In addition to painting, he was an accomplished printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor, adventurer and voyager… 

This oil on canvas painting is entitled “Portrait of a Spanish Woman”.  It was completed by Waldo Peirce (1884 – 1971) ca. 1913 – 1914.  After attending Harvard, Peirce studied art in Europe and traveled the continent, spending 2 years in Spain.  It’s likely that this painting was a commissioned work, either by the sitter or her family.  The painting makes a statement about the subject’s beauty as well as her economic status.

This oil on canvas painting of a baseball field titled “Weehawken” was completed by John Moore (b. 1941) in 1989.  It is a drive by view of the ballfield from the freeway in New Jersey.  You can see the Manhattan skyline in the distance.  Moore’s connection with Maine is tied to the fact that he summered there for many years.  In addition, since retiring from the Fine Arts Department at the University of Pennsylvania, Moore has lived and worked full-time as an artist in Belfast Maine.

In the top photo, these panoramas of Rockland Maine’s Main Street (top) and Rockland’s Waterfront (bottom) were completed by Samuel Fuller (b. 1825) and Ebenezer Eames Finch (b. 1788) ca. 1847.  As per the story told by Fuller, both he and Finch, both portrait artists, just didn’t have enough work in town for both of them and Finch, an elderly fellow, was in a tough place financially.  So Fuller agreed to create these panoramic views of Rockland.  Apparently it did earn some money.  The second photo shows some of the detail furnished in the 2 panoramic views...

I love these creations not just for the art work, but also as a historic ‘snapshot’ of Rockland in the mid-1800s.  The detail is very interesting.

This oil on canvas painting from 1941, titled “Bath Iron Works – World War II”, was completed by Carroll Thayer Berry. (1886 – 1978) Berry, the son of a dairy farmer, got a degree in naval architecture, worked on the Panama Canal, caught malaria, started studying art while recovering…and then he became an illustrator.  He was one of the first artists to be assigned to the American Camouflage Corp in World War I.  Later, as an established artist and with World War II looming, the Bath Iron Works commissioned Berry to document their construction of fighting ships for the U.S. Navy.

Note: Carroll Thayer Berry is one of the most important wood engravers from the United States.  A native of Maine, he created a body of work that is regionally focused.  To see some of his engravings, you can go to https://www.lirosgallery.com/berryhome.html.

This oil on canvas painting was painted in the 1920’s and it’s titled “The Builders”.  It depicts a group of men from various backgrounds who are embarking on a new business venture.  It was painted by Will Rowland Davis. (1879 – 1944) I like the intensity projected via this painting…

Davis was born in Lincolnville Maine and he died in Rockport Maine.  He worked as a painter, photographer, etcher, craftsman, block printer, writer, illustrator and publisher. 

As we exited the main building of the museum, we came upon this large wooden sculpture.  It is “Untitled (Camel)” and it was completed by Bernard (Blackie) Langlais. (1921 – 1977) Langlais was a Maine native and he was one of the ‘stars’ of the Avant-Garde movement in New York during the 1950s and early 1960s.

In 1966, he bought a home and studio in Cushing Maine where he began constructing large scale animals from ‘found’ and previously used wood.  His menagerie included everything from birds to bears and from lions and crocodiles to horses.  The Kohler Foundation has ensured that Langlais’s creations from the various periods of his life have been preserved.

This old church is an annex of the Farnsworth Museum.  It’s referred to as the Wyeth Center.  While there were plenty of Wyeth works of art in the main building, this structure is solely focused on the works of N.C. Wyeth, his son Andrew Wyeth, his grandson Jamie Wyeth.

This painting is titled “John Burns of Gettysburg”.  It was painted by N.C. Wyeth in 1922.  Bret Harte’s poem of the same name inspired Wyeth to paint this picture. (To read this famous poem, you can go to https://mypoeticside.com/show-classic-poem-12448.

John Burns lived at Gettysburg at the time of the battle.  At the age of 69 he took up arms to fight with the Union Army.  He was initially armed with a flintlock musket and powder horn until another soldier gave him a more modern weapon.  Burns was a veteran of the War of 1812.  He was wounded in battle but he survived to become a national hero.  When President Lincoln came to Gettysburg after the battle to dedicate a national cemetery, he wanted to meet Burns…and they walked together through the town.  John Burns fame spread and Bret Harte wrote his poem about Burn’s exploits in 1864.  To read more about Burns and to view photos of this crusty old fighter, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Burns.

This is another famous painting by N.C. Wyeth.  “Barbara Frietchie” was completed in 1922.  Like the painting of John Burns, this painting was based on a poem related to the Civil War.  

In this instance, the poet was John Greenleaf Whittier.  The story behind the poem and painting is that as an occupying Confederate General and his troops passed through Frederick Maryland, she leaned out a window of her home and called out “Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag”. 

The poem was published in 1863’s October edition of The Atlantic Monthly.  The facts are open to dispute as regards what really happened and who was involved but the story has been successfully utilized by the city of Frederick to attract tourists since the early 1900s.  To read the poem, go to https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45483/barbara-frietchie.

This rather sweet and sentimental painting by N.C. Wyeth caught our eye.  It’s titled “The Hayride” and it was completed in 1912.  N.C. Wyeth was one of America’s greatest illustrators.  In his lifetime, he created over 3,000 paintings and illustrated 112 books.  One of these books, Treasure Island, is considered one of his masterpieces…and indeed, the proceeds paid for his studio.  Wyeth was both a painter and an illustrator…and he understood the difference.  To quote, “Painting and illustration cannot be mixed – one cannot merge from one into the other”.

If it looks like a Wyeth painting, it must be so…right?  In this case, the painting, titled “Wheeler’s Bay (Portrait of Forrie Wall)” was not painted by a member of the Wyeth clan…at least not by a blood relative.

This compelling portrait of carpenter Forrest Wall was painted by John W. McCoy. (1910 – 1989) To begin, Forrie Wall was the carpenter who built the room in one of Andrew Wyeth’s most famous paintings entitled “Her Room”.  In this painting Wall is sitting in the doorway of his workshop in Spruce Head Maine.  It turns out that McCoy studied with N.C. Wyeth where he met Wyeth’s daughter Ann…who he married.  He also frequently painted outdoors side by side with Andrew Wyeth.

FYI…I noted that Ann Wyeth McCoy was also a painter.  I found one of her paintings on Etsy with an asking price of $5,000.  Howie (Howard) Wyeth, N.C. Wyeth’s oldest son was a musician…a drummer who played with many musical artists, most notably Bob Dylan.

However, this painting which is titled “Maine Coon Cat” (1998), is a Wyeth…James Browning Wyeth (b. 1946). The painting was completed on Mohegan Island in Maine.  ‘Jamie’ Wyeth said that it took a ton of catnip to hold the cat’s attention while he was working…

Although Jamie Wyeth loved to paint animals, 2 of his best known paintings were of John F. Kennedy and Andy Warhol.  Jamie’s paintings are available through galleries and via auction.  I noted that prints were priced at around $1,500 each and original watercolors are estimated at auction beginning at around $80,000.

This work of art seemed like a great place to end this rather lengthy post on my blog site.  “LOVE, Blue Outside Red Inside” was created by Robert Indiana (1928 – 2018) in 1996.  We’ve all seen this symbol or iterations of it somewhere…even on t-shirts.  This sculpture was constructed with polychrome aluminum.  For the last 30 years of his life, Robert Indiana lived on the island of Vinalhaven, just 12 miles off the coast at Rockland Maine. 

The Farnsworth Art Museum is an excellent museum and worthy of a few hours for anyone who appreciates art, especially American art.  This museum is located at 16 Museum Street in Rockland Maine.  Phone: 207-596-6457.  Website: https://www.farnsworthmuseum.org/.  FYI…Many of the art works at the Farnsworth Art Museum can be viewed online. 

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for persisting by looking through all of the photos and materials I included in this posting!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave