Category Archives: Exhibitions

A Fresh Look

By Vanessa Nesvig

Recently, we received an email from a patron who noticed something incredible about a work in our collection. The painting, titled John Calvin Stevens (1855-1940) by Portland native Claude Montgomery, is a portrait of the Maine artist and architect and is currently on view in our exhibition The Portland Society of Art and Winslow Homer’s Legacy in Maine. In the portrait, John Calvin Stevens is shown seated in an elegant interior decorated with a small landscape painting in the background to the left of the mantel. This painting-within-a-painting was originally assumed to represent a work by Stevens based on his involvement with the Portland-based painting group The Brush’uns and his dedication to the city’s artistic life.

Now, thanks to the keen eye of a visitor, we realize that this landscape image is not of a painting by John Calvin Stevens but, rather, is the iconic painting The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog by Winslow Homer. Homer’s composition is recognizable by the dark shapes, the glistening of light off of the water, and the halo around the sun—definitive characteristics apparent in the landscape near the mantel.

In 1901, Homer gave The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog to Stevens who asked for “any production of Winslow Homer” as payment for architectural plans he had drawn for Kettle Cove, a cottage at Prouts Neck that Homer used as a summer rental property. (Stevens had also worked on Homer’s studio in 1884 and 1890.) In a letter to Stevens that accompanied the painting, Homer noted, “I am very much surprised and pleased at your bill. This kind of thing occurs seldom in matters of business . . . I can greet you as a brother artist and thank you sincerely. I send you this sketch of mine that I think is appropriate and will please you.”1

1 Earle G. Shettleworth Jr. and William David Barry, “Brother Artists,” Bowdoin, Fall 1988: 18.

Image credits: (Top to bottom) Claude Montgomery, “John Calvin Stevens (1855-1940),” 1935, oil on canvas, 40 x 32 1/2 inches. Gift of the artist.; Winslow Homer, “The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog,” 1894, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 1/4 inches. Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester; R.T. Miller Fund.

Mark’s Remarks: A Peek at 2013

We’re jumpstarting 2013 with a renewed focus on contemporary art in its many forms—setting the stage for a broad array of programs that include painting, photography, drawing, sculpture, and installation art. In addition to exciting new collaborations with artists and our community, you will also find a renewed emphasis on our outstanding permanent collection. Galleries will be transformed and collections re-installed in fascinating new ways.

Visit soon, visit often. See you at the PMA!

Mark H.C. Bessire
Director

Lois Dodd: Catching the Light
On view January 17—April 7
To kick off 2013, the PMA is hosting an exhibition highlighting the career of American plein-air painter, Lois Dodd. The exhibition will include images of the places that were most important to her—views of New York City’s Lower East Side from her apartment windows and the woods and gardens of Midcoast Maine.

Alex Katz stated, “Lois is one serious painter.” We couldn’t agree more and hope you join us to celebrate the first career museum retrospective for one of Maine’s most beloved painters.

Voices of Design: 25 Years of Architalx
On view February 2—May 19
Voices of Design will celebrate 25 years of Portland’s Architalx lecture series and showcase the power of design through an interactive exhibition featuring work of some of the world’s leading architects and designers.

Blueberry Rakers: Photographs by David Brooks Stess
On view April 6—May 19
David Brooks Stess has spent two decades photographing and participating in the annual blueberry harvest in northern Maine. Brooks brings the physical aspect and hard realities of the manual labor required for the harvest, to light while also focusing on the relationships and social life in workers’ camps on the edge of the fields.

The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism
On view May 2—September 8
This summer the work of timeless masters Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Georges Braque, Paul Cézanne, and Paul Gauguin, among others, will be on view at the PMA from the renowned William S. Paley Collection at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. We are excited to be the only New England stop for the collection’s 2012-2014 North American tour.

Ahmed Alsoudani: Redacted
On view September 7—December 8
Iraq-born American artist Ahmed Alsoudani’s contemporary works of anguished abstraction approach themes of violence, survival, and history from every angle. We are grateful to have Alsoudani, an alumni of Maine College of Art, back in Maine for a powerful exhibition of the artist’s recent pieces.

Winslow Homer’s Civil War
On view September 7—December 8
This exhibition will draw from the PMA’s own collection of Winslow Homer’s wood-engravings that depict images of the Civil War the artist produced for Harper’s Weekly. The pieces showcase Homer’s unique vision of modern warfare and keen eye for social commentary.

2013 Portland Museum of Art Biennial
On view September 26—January 5
We are thrilled, once again, to celebrate the eighth Portland Museum of Art Biennial. The juried exhibition not only features entries from artists who have a meaningful connection to our state, but also will be juried by our new Curator of Contemporary and Modern Art, Jessica May.

What Did You Think? “Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine”

As the PMA exclusive exhibition, Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine, heads into its final week, we asked visitors, members, staff, and volunteers to give us their impressions of the show.

Plan your visit today and see this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity before it closes on Sunday, December 30!

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