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Celebrate art in Maine at the Portland Museum of Art, the state's oldest arts institution, founded in 1882.
The Museum's extensive collection of fine and decorative arts dates from the 18th century to the present. Works by Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Rockwell Kent, Marsden Hartley, and Andrew Wyeth showcase the unique artistic heritage of the United States and Maine.
The major European movements, from Impression through Surrealism, are represented by the Joan Whitney Payson, Albert Otten, and Scott M. Black collections, which include works by Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch, and Rene Magritte.
Special exhibitions complement these holdings. The
Museum is housed in an award-winning building, which opened
in 1983, designed by I. M. Pei & Partners. Visit today
for an unparalleled look at the art of three centuries.
18th to 20th century American fine and decorative arts. Joan Payson Whitney Collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings. Special exhibitions.
PORTLAND MUSEUM OF ART RECEIVES JENNY HOLZER PAINTING FROM CONTEMPORARY ART COLLECTOR
(Portland, Maine) The
Portland Museum of Art has received a painting by
internationally known artist Jenny Holzer from contemporary
art collector Kevin Longe and his family, daughter Kathleen
Marie Longe and son Kelly Patrick Longe. The painting,
entitled Left
Hand, is
currently on view in the Museum’s third floor galleries.
“This is a significant gift and the first major painting by Jenny Holzer to come into the Museum’s collection,” said Museum Director Mark H. C. Bessire. “We are thrilled with Kevin’s desire to bring great art to the Museum and to help us build a significant contemporary collection.”
Left Hand features an enormous handprint below an enigmatic hand-written inscription that gives the name of an Iraqi detainee who died in Abu Ghraib prison. Like other works in her Protect Protect series, Left Hand is taken from previously classified documents made public by the United States Government. When Holzer exhibited works from this series at the 2007 Biennale in Venice, she observed that, “People find them sad. The prints from the detainees are post-mortem, and it is ghastly to take a dead man’s hands and yank them down to make prints. That’s why those handprints are distorted.” While the subject matter is difficult, Holzer’s paintings have elements that are in the spirit of Pop and contemporary artists, such as Andy Warhol and Gerhard Richter, whose work raised difficult subjects to high art.
Holzer’s identity as an artist has been closely linked to her use of language, specifically aphorisms, that she carves in granite benches, displays as large LED signs, and projects in public spaces. In December 2010, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Nelson Social Justice Fund lecture series at the Portland Museum of Art, the Museum commissioned a projection by Holzer for the Museum’s façade. This site-specific work, For Portland , featured selections from the poetry of Nobel Prize-winner Wisława Szymborska. The projection was on view for one night only and was a crowd-stopper for downtown Portland. The Museum also owns a small set of Holzer sayings printed on wooden postcards, one of which reads: “Protect me from what I want.”
In presenting the gift to the Museum, Kevin said he chose the Portland Museum of Art for “its desire to build a contemporary collection for which this piece could serve as a cornerstone for attracting other internationally recognized art, the interest and enthusiasm of the museum staff and the Portland, Maine community in the arts, as well as the Museum’s emphasis on social justice through the Nelson Social Justice Fund. I wanted the painting, which was first exhibited at the 52nd Annual Venice Biennale, to go to a museum where it could have the greatest impact.”
K evin Longe is a avid supporter of the Portland Museum of Art and president of ThermoSafe Brands. In January 2010, along with the Jenny Holzer painting, Longe loaned the Museum three major works of contemporary art by Richard Serra and Ellsworth Kelly. The three works are all black and white and large in scale, with each featuring a distinctive surface that engages the visitor in different ways—politically, thematically, and aesthetically.
(Image credit: Jenny Holzer (United States, born 1950), Left Hand , 2007, oil on linen. Portland Museum of Art.)
ARTIST MILDRED BURRAGE’S YEARS IN
This spring, the Portland
Museum of Art will present From Portland to Paris: Mildred Burrage’s Years in
France , an
exhibition devoted to the work of Portland-born artist Mildred
Burrage (1890-1983), who as a young aspiring painter traveled to
While
Mildred Burrage was a prolific artist up until her death in 1983,
this exhibition will celebrate the crucial, formative years
(1909-1914) of her life when she traveled abroad and was
introduced and exposed to modern European movements. There,
Burrage trained her eye on the landscape, creating oil paintings
and filling sketchbooks with images in her distinctive
Impressionist style. She wrote copious letters to her family back
in
Many of the
letters in the exhibition, carefully transcribed by Maine State
Historian and co-curator of the exhibition Earle G. Shettleworth,
Jr., are delightfully annotated with drawings and watercolor
sketches . The exhibition will
also include a special display evocative of a turn-of-the-century
artist’s studio and will feature works by other artists who
painted in Giverny represented in the Museum’s permanent
collection and on loan from private collectors.
Mildred
Burrage took her first art classes from
Throughout
her travels in
"The river is a good
deal wider than the
While this
exhibition will focus on the early moments in the artistic career
of Mildred Burrage, she went on to become a force in
This project
is related to the exhibition The Draw of the Normandy Coast
(June 14-September 3, 2012) which will also be on view at the
Museum through the summer of 2012—both exhibitions will celebrate
the lure of northern France for American and European
artists.
The
exhibition is curated by Margaret E. Burgess, The Susan Donnell
and Harry W. Konkel Associate Curator of European Art at the
Portland Museum of Art, and Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., Maine
State Historian. A full-color catalogue will be published with
this exhibition.
This
exhibition is supported by Sally Wallace Rand, William G.
Waters, and by Wilmont and Arlene Schwind in honor of Sally
Wallace Rand. Corporate sponsorship is provided by The Bear
Bookshop, Marlboro, VT.
(Image Credit: Mildred Burrage, Souper
a Deux , 1909–1912, oil on canvas, 34 5/16 x 30 1/2
inches, Portland Museum of Art, Maine, Gift of the artist.)
Edgar Degas: The Private Impressionist: Works on
Paper by the Artist and His Circle
(first floor)
Edgar Degas: The Private Impressionist
will be
the first comprehensive exhibition in the history of the
Portland Museum of Art devoted to the 19th century French
master Degas and his works on paper. Comprised of more than 70
drawings, prints, pastels, and photographs as well as several
sculptures, the exhibition will provide an insightful
exploration of the oeuvre of one of the most skilled and
complex artists in art history. In addition to masterworks by
Degas, the exhibition will include a select group of 17 rare
works on paper by artists of his circle, including captivating
works by Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Jean-Auguste
Dominique Ingres, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Paintings and
drawings by Jane Sutherland, a contemporary New England artist
greatly inspired by Degas, will add yet another dimension to
the display.
*The Call
of the Normandy Coast (1820–1920) (first floor)
June 7
through September 3, 2012
The northern coast of France—and Normandy in
particular—proved to be an artistic crucible for French and
American painters during the course of the 19th and 20th
centuries. Geographically convenient to Paris, accessible by
train, with dramatic cliffs and rock formations, and picturesque
and active ports, Normandy was an attractive haven. Realists,
Impressionists, Neo-Impressionists, Fauves, Cubists, and
Surrealists all gravitated to the area. Spanning roughly 100
years (1820–1920), this exhibition will chart the coast’s
significance and showcase the ways in which the landscape was
rendered by a spectrum of artists. This exhibition will explore
the importance of the towns and villages of Honfleur and Le
Havre, and such unique destinations as Étretat and will
feature more than 40 works of European and American art, mostly
paintings and works on paper, from the Portland Museum of Art
and from the private collection of Scott M. Black.
CELEBRITY PORTRAITS ON VIEW THIS WINTER AT THE
(
The exhibition will reveal the sometimes surprising ways in which
appearance, poses, and props help to define the public perception
of an artist’s work—both on the stage and in the museum. Other
photographers whose works will be on view include Philippe
Halsman, with his ground-breaking images of notable early
television comics, such as Lucille Ball, Jimmy Durante, and
Imogene Coca, whose wildly expressive faces helped forge their
careers. Barbara Morgan’s photographs of the noted choreographer
Martha Graham further capture the essence of modern dance in
similarly exaggerated movements. The exhibition also includes a
close look at some of
This summer the Portland
Museum of Art presents The Portland Society of Art: Winslow Homer’s Legacy
in Maine, on
view July 28 through January 13, 2013. This exhibition
examines, for the first time, the artistic relationship
between the painter Winslow Homer, his close friend the
architect John Calvin Stevens, and the early years of the
Portland Society of Art, the precursor to the Portland Museum
of Art. With architectural drawings and a range of paintings
and watercolors by Winslow Homer and his Maine contemporaries,
this installation of 50 works provides a deeper understanding
of Portland’s art world at the turn of the last century.
The exhibition includes southern Maine scenes by artists Charles Kimball, Vivian Akers, and George Morse, Casco Bay seascapes by Harrison Bird Brown, and watercolors by Mary King Longfellow. These paintings will be installed next to contemporary pictorialist photographs by William B. Post, Frank Laing, and other members of the Portland Camera Club. Together, they place Winslow Homer’s art in a regional context and they demonstrate how important his legacy was for the burgeoning community of artists in Portland during the early decades of the 20th-century.
Founded in 1882, just as the Homer family began to explore Prouts Neck for its potential development as a summer community, the Portland Society of Art sought to define a higher profile for the fine arts in this city. The Society organized small exhibitions of works by local artists, encouraged residents to display art works that they had acquired in their travels abroad, and promoted the new idea that photography was a fine art.
A century ago, just after Homer’s death in 1910, the Portland Society of Art opened its new art galleries designed by the city’s leading architect, John Calvin Stevens. The stylish Renaissance Revival building, known as the Lorenzo de Medici Sweat Galleries, was intended to house the Society’s growing collection of art by contemporary Maine painters. Significantly, during the first three years of its existence, the galleries also featured a small, but significant, collection of works by Winslow Homer. Lent to the Society by Homer’s brother, Arthur, the collection included 16 paintings and watercolors. During those same years, 1911 to 1913, John Calvin Stevens placed his Homer painting, The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog , on public view for the first time. This romantic scene of the rocks at Prouts Neck, shrouded in fog, silhouettes the Homer family compound which Stevens had designed for them in 1883.
Alongside Homer’s work, the Portland Society of Art’s early exhibitions also featured paintings by an important group of local plein-air painters known as the “Brush ‘uns,” whose Sunday excursions were frequently led by Stevens. Over the subsequent decades the Society acquired a representative group of their landscapes and portraits, in addition to a number of art photographs taken by members of the Portland Camera Club, housed in the Society’s building. These works came to form the core collection of the Portland Museum of Art, when it was fully established in 1911.
(Image credit: Winslow Homer (United States, 1836–1910), Artists Sketching in the White Mountains , 1868, oil on panel, 9 7/16 x 15 13/16 inches. Bequest of Charles Shipman Payson.)
Tours Guided tours are given daily at 2 p.m. and on Thursday evening at 5:30 p.m. To reserve a group tour contact the Education Department at (207) 775-6148, at least three weeks in advance.
The Museum Cafe is open year-round for lunch. No admission is required to dine at the Museum Cafe.
The Museum Shop is open during regular Museum hours. No admission is required to visit the Shop.
The Museum is located at Seven Congress Square in Downtown Portland, at the intersection of High, Congress, and Free Streets.
To reach the Museum from I-295 (north or south), take Exit 6A, Forest Avenue South. Bear right at the first light, drive through the park, and proceed on State Street to the top of the hill. Turn left at the light onto Congress Street. The Museum is located on the right after the next light. Public parking lots are located on High Street, Free Street, and Spring Street.
Mark
Bessire, Director
Kristen Levesque, Director of Marketing &
Public Relations
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