Another great art collection in Portland, Maine with some very good paintings by American artists.
Strawberries by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, France, 1841-1919, oil on canvas.
I saw right away the way he makes things sparkle like the wine and ribbon in his painting in the Phillips Collection in Washington DC.
The Seed of Areal by Paul Gauguin, France, 1848-1903, oil on burlap.
Gauguin went to Tahiti in 1891and hoped to find an enchanting paradise; however by that time Tahiti had been altered as a French Colony. Even though poverty and sickness were rampant Gauguin included elements of the imaginary presenting Tahiti as a paradise.
In this painting Gauguin represents his young mistress as the earth mother of the Areoi sect in Polynesian mythology.
Figures and Stars, 1949, by Joan Miro, Spain, 1893-1983.
In this small witty canvas, a birdlike creature at the right accompanies a female figure and an asterisk-shaped star. Miro thought birds can carry us into space into the world of imagination and fantasy.
The Burghers of Calais, bronze, by Auguste Rodin, France, 1840-1917.
Les Bourgeois de Calais is one of the most famous sculptures by Auguste Rodin, completed in 1889. It serves as a monument to an occurrence in 1347 during the Hundred Years' War, when Calais, an important French port on the English Channel, was under siege by the English for over a year.
Starvation eventually forced the city to parley for surrender.
Edward offered to spare the people of the city if any six of its top leaders would surrender themselves to him, presumably to be executed. Edward demanded that they walk out wearing nooses around their necks, and carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first, and five other burghers joined with him. Saint Pierre led this envoy of volunteers to the city gates. It was this moment, and this poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice, and willingness to face imminent death that Rodin captured in his sculpture.
A she's House, Charleston, South Carolina, 1929 by Edward Hopper, United States, 1882-1967.
Watercolor and pencil on paper.
As is often the case in Hopper's work, the unique treatment of light and shadows gives a touch of melancholy to an otherwise ordinary scene.
My favorite of the day: Frank Pierce, circa 1968 by James Fitzgerald, United States, 1899-1971,
Oil on canvas.
MatinicusI from Mt. Ararat, 1916, by George Bellows, United States, 1882-1925
Oil on panel.
This looks like Maine to me.
Weatherbeaten, 1894, by Winslow Homer, United States, 1836-1910
Oil on canvas
Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art.
Lobstering off Black Spruce Ledge, 1941, by N.C. Wyeth, 1882-1945
Tempera and oil on panel.
This one I want hanging in my house.
Overview of the Portland Art Museum lobby.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn-Asleep on the Raft, 2011, Tim Rollins & K.O.S (Kids of Survival), United States, b. 1955
Matte acrylic, book pages, gesso on canvas.
Can you see the pages of Mark Twain's book embedded in the background.
I had never thought of H. F. As a kid of survival, but he was: his father tried to steal from him and kill him.
The Lotus Eaters, 1895, by Thomas Moran, United States, 1837-1926.
Oil on canvas.
Moran was best known for his dramatic, large-scale views of the American West.
Then I went to Freeport, Maine to shop at L. L. Bean!
