By Catie Joyce-Bulay
From our August 2022 issue
Farnsworth Art Museum
Farnsworth Forward: The Collection
The Farnsworth is well-known for its Wyeths, and rightly so — the museum holds a remarkable stash from the First Family of American Art. Farnsworth Forward: The Collection, though, highlights how its holdings — some 15,000 works — can more broadly and deeply convey Maine’s place in American art. The show is guest curated by Suzette McAvoy, who was the museum’s chief curator in the early ’90s before helming the CMCA for many years. The concept began with a chat between McAvoy and the Farnsworth’s brass about how to look anew at the permanent collection. One key outcome: what McAvoy calls “contemporary interventions” — pairings of historical and contemporary paintings meant to “spark a visual conversation.”
So a 2003 work by Boothbay-born artist Sam Cady, for instance, appears next to a 1916 painting by George Bellows. Both depict the construction of a wooden ship, showing the continuity of a traditional Maine industry but also an evolution of how to see it: Bellows brings a realist’s eye, Cady zooms in on crisscrossing beams, blurring the line between realism and abstraction. The pairs of works seem to challenge and reinforce each other — and cast the collection in a meaningful new light. Through December 31. 16 Museum St., Rockland. 207-596-6457.
Ogunquit Museum of American Art
The View from Narrow Cove
The painter Charles Woodbury first ventured from Boston to Narrow Cove, in Ogunquit, in the late 1800s, after marrying a native Mainer. The couple bought five acres, and Woodbury, an established painter and instructor back in the city, began hosting multi-week art courses on the shore. His influence jump-started a seasonal migration up the coast, turning Ogunquit into a renowned arts colony. The View from Narrow Cove is in its fifth iteration now, after debuting in 2018, each summer bringing a fresh dive into the collection of the museum, which opened on Woodbury’s old property in 1953.
The exhibition draws lines between the Ogunquit colony and broader movements in art. It’s interesting, for example to see a landscape by the German-born Rudolph Dirks, a famous early-20th-century cartoonist who honed his fine-arts skills in Ogunquit. The overall impression is of the diversity of the influences that have flowed in and out of the little town. Associate curator Devon Zimmerman describes the exhibition as “a wonderful opportunity to see the rich history of Ogunquit but also to look at it through the lens of the larger artist communities.” Through October 31. 543 Shore Rd., Ogunquit. 207-646-4909.
Center for Maine Contemporary Art
The View from Here
The CMCA has always held a laser focus on the here and now — a non-collecting institution ever on the lookout for what’s new, never stashing anything away for later. On the occasion of the museum’s 70th anniversary, however, curators are allowing themselves a glance back, at least sort of. The View from Here contains work from 20 artists, ranging in age from their 20s to 90s, who have played a part in CMCA history, from exhibiting work to donating work for auction. It’s still very much of the moment — most pieces are recent, though 95-year-old Lois Dodd, who had a major solo show at the CMCA in 2008, lent her 1974 painting Sunlight on Spruce at Noon, which previously hung in her Cushing home. Dodd’s fellow nonagenarian midcoast-based painter Alex Katz, one of the institution’s earliest exhibitors, contributed his 2017 abstract landscape Grass 7, a large canvas of vivid green and yellow brushstrokes.
“We wanted to celebrate our history,” CMCA executive director Tim Peterson says, “but from a contemporary perspective.” It’s a retrospective that’s light on retrospect but still gets at the identity of the museum. Over the decades, the CMCA has been a home for artists in any and all media, so long as they’re connected to Maine. If You Lived Here (You’d Be Home By Now) is a fiberglass replica of a camping trailer with a neon sign on the side that reads “It’s the little things” and an embedded screen showing looped video of the coast. Tectonic Industries, the collaborative duo behind it, had been searching for a creative community by the sea where they could live and work, which landed them here. Through September 11. 21 Winter St., Rockland. 207-701-5005.
GEORGE BELLOWS, THE TEAMSTER, 1916, OIL ON CANVAS, BEQUEST OF MRS. ELIZABETH B. NOYCE, 1997; RUDOLPH DIRKS (1877-1968), HILL TO THE SEA (OGUNQUIT, MAINE), 1930, OIL ON CANVAS, 21 X 24 INCHES, GIFT OF JOHN AND MARY DIRKS, 1997.10.2. KATHERINE BRADFORD, SUMMER NIGHT, 2021, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, PHOTOGRAPHED BY DAVID CLOUGH
