Bringing more voices to "N. C. Wyeth: New Perspectives"
In my role as Associate Educator for Interpretation, I work closely with curators, artists, and community members to develop content for exhibitions such as label text, audio guides, interpretive videos, tactile tools, and activity guides. The purpose of this content is to create multiple access points that facilitate meaning making within an exhibition. Sometimes I create the content and other times my role is more akin to a creative director or a project manager.
Part of the Learning and Interpretation department’s mission is to create a platform for multiple perspectives. Art does not exist in a vacuum and reflects the time in which it was made. Likewise, all the content that we create reflects our current times. When working with art from previous centuries, my goal is to provide context that expands dominant narratives and acknowledges how the past engages with the present and in turn, how history impacts potential futures.
The title for N. C. Wyeth: New Perspectives was proposed and developed by Christine B. Podmaniczky, Brandywine River Museum of Art Curator of N.C. Wyeth Collections and Historic Properties, in reference to the opportunity for new scholarly voices in the catalogue and exhibition. At the PMA, the exhibition title serves two purposes: it invites audiences who are familiar with Wyeth to see him in new ways, and it invites new audiences, who have traditionally not been asked to share their perspectives about American art history, to contribute their ideas.
To serve both of these goals, we asked a diverse range of community members to participate by way of “Another Perspective” labels. As with any work of art, there are many ways to interpret Wyeth’s paintings. The same painting can conjure warm nostalgia for some and painful histories for others. To broaden our understanding of Wyeth and American art, and mark the plurality of histories and perspectives, we engaged people across disciplines to discuss the exhibition objects from their personal and professional perspectives.
N. C. Wyeth’s illustrations profoundly shaped American visual culture through the pervasiveness of print. The books he illustrated were adapted into films, borrowing elements of his visual language for motion picture audiences. As a well-known illustrator and painter, Wyeth’s archetypes contribute to mythologies of the American West and reflect multiple United States histories—in who they glorify, who they romanticize, and who they ignore.
Our team identified four of the themes in the exhibition to focus on, including: fishing and island culture, cinema studies, illustration, and representation of Indigenous peoples. Wyeth’s mature paintings depict Maine fishermen on the midcoast, influenced by the time he spent in Port Clyde. His illustrations of Treasure Island represent a career-defining moment and influenced filmmakers and visual storytelling. His artistic identity was defined by the duality of being an illustrator and a fine artist and how he navigated success in both arenas.
We felt the images of Indigenous people in particular needed additional context, as stereotypical representations can continue to perpetuate harm by reinforcing negative beliefs and erasing individuality. In her book Decolonizing Museums, Indigenous studies and museum-studies scholar Dr. Amy Lonetree discusses how everything museums do exists on a spectrum between harm and healing. For the interpretation of this exhibition, we felt it was our responsibility to address these paintings from the perspective of specific individuals who are part of Indigenous communities.
While we were particularly concerned with inviting members of Indigenous communities (who themselves represent diverse professional affiliations), our four themes also prompted us to invite non-Native colleagues to reflect on different aspects of the exhibition.
We engaged Dawn Neptune Adams (Penobscot), who offered her perspective on multiple themes including Indigenous representation, media, and fishing rights in Maine. Neptune Adams narrated and co-produced the Boston/New England Emmy nominated documentary The Penobscot: Ancestral River, Contested Territory.
Rachel Allen (Nez Perce) is an artist and curator who recently worked on the exhibition Nature’s Nation at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, which looked at American landscape art through the lens of environmentalism. We asked her to discuss Wyeth’s representation of Indigenous Peoples and Western Culture. The Nez Perce nation is deeply connected to horses and the rodeo. One of the topics that she chose to discuss was how Indigenous and African American cowboys are conspicuously absent from Wyeth’s depictions of the West.
Bowdoin College Cinema Studies professor Aviva Briefel studies Victorian literature and cinematography with a special interest in horror films. In her labels, Briefel dove into the Wyeth’s evocative expression of the senses.
As a cinematographer, Adrian Peng Correira gave insight between building a scene behind a camera versus painting a scene on a canvas. He also discussed how cinematographers and directors use paintings as part of their ‘look books,’ a tool used to develop their visual language for a movie.
Daniel Minter is a local artist and educator whose assemblage A Distant Holla is part of the PMA collection. His unique experience as both a fine artist and illustrator connects to Wyeth’s experience. Minter shared his reading of what the figures in Wyeth’s painting communicate and how those ideas persist today.
John Bear Mitchell (Penobscot) is a Wabanaki Studies Lecturer at University of Maine and an arts educator. Mitchell provided insight into the history of the Maine Coast, which Wyeth painted from his studio in Port Clyde. Mitchell shared how the manner in which people view and engage with the land has changed over millennia.
Don Perkins, the director of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, discussed Maine’s fishing and lobstering industries. Perkins discussed the history of dory boats and life on remote islands on Maine’s midcoast. He noted how Wyeth portrayed real people and captured the sense of danger for those who work on the sea.
I interviewed each individual in person and captured audio of the interview, which was later transcribed. Excerpts of these interviews are visible on the walls in the exhibition wherever you see a label marked “Another Perspective.”
My first interview took me to Rockland to interview Adrian Peng Correira while he was teaching at Maine Media Workshops. I later drove to Salem, MA, to interview Rachel Allen who gave me a sneak peak of the massive Wyeth mural Peace, Commerce and Prosperity installed in the Peabody Essex’s new wing. When I drove to the Orono area to interview John Bear Mitchell, I took the opportunity to set up a meeting with UMaine professors to discuss the Maine Bicentennial, and John Bear’s office neighbor, Micah Pawling, came to that meeting! We have invited Micah to write a label about Frederic Edwin Church’s Mount Katahdin from Millinocket Camp for our bicentennial exhibition, Stories of Maine: An Incomplete History. Micah advised us to balance out tribal representation when we reach out to Wabanaki folks to participate in exhibitions such as Maine Stories.
For a recent Maine transplant such as myself, a benefit of this project has been the opportunity to learn a great deal about the history of the region. For example, John Bear Mitchell taught me about the early contact between the Penobscot and George Washington and the integral role they played in the Revolutionary War. Additionally, I have learned more about engaging community voices into exhibitions. Rachel Allen (Nez Perce) pointed out to me that she didn’t feel comfortable talking about the images that were of people from the Navajo Nation since that wasn’t her story to tell. That gave me insight into the need to be specific—that each Nation has unique experiences and histories—something Wyeth romanticized in his portraits of Native Americans as a homogenized and disappearing people.
Wyeth was a masterful storyteller, which is why I could sit with the participants and talk about each painting for a half an hour. Each stroke of paint is a choice that communicates an idea. All the people I spoke with recognized Wyeth’s talents. As Daniel Minter noted, it is a testament to Wyeth’s skill as an illustrator that he captured so many of the values of a sector of America during his lifetime. Many of these values persist, which is why I believe they should be addressed.
The “Another Perspective” labels are a pathway for PMA patrons and staff to learn about new perspectives that have the potential to shine light on our current cultural moment. In my interview with Aviva Briefel, she discussed how Wyeth’s compositional constructions implicate the viewer. Combining the “Another Perspective” labels and audio guide with this element of Wyeth’s compositions might make some people uncomfortable. The interpretation of art is influenced by our own worldview made up from our cultural values and personal experiences. Some of the labels decenter and question the values of dominant worldviews by revisiting histories through perspectives that might be new to some people. Learning about a new perspective can be a challenge, but isn’t that what art asks viewers to do? Through experiencing how seven individuals view an artwork, there is an opportunity to learn more about Wyeth’s art but also about our own communities.
Our goal is to continually evaluate our collection and exhibition text. If you find text at the PMA which you believe misses an important perspective or if you have suggestions for how we could improve the language, please email us at curatorial@portlandmuseum.org
top image: Newell Convers Wyeth (United States, 1882-1945), "Dark Harbor Fishermen" (detail), 1943, tempera on hardboard (Renaissance Panel). Bequest of Elizabeth B. Noyce, 1996.38.63.
second image: Aviva Briefel
third image: Daniel Minter