Pulpit Rock Standing View Underfoot Study 2

Pulpit Rock Standing View 
Underfoot Study 2

On Monhegan Island painted August 31, 2026, 8" x 10" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$300

Abstract Monhegan Visual Art Essay

Abstract Art on Monhegan Island

1

Pulpit Rock #1 Monhegan

Michael Loew (1907-1985), American

Watercolor on paper, 18" x 15" (w x h), 1951

Monhegan Museum Collection

Source: Monhegan Museum, edited
Born and raised in New York City, Loew purchased a cottage on Horn's Hill on Monhegan in 1960 and added a large studio in the early 1970's. In New York, Loew lived close to 28th Street where many other Monhegan artists had studios. After high school Michael Loew apprenticed to a stained-glass maker. In 1926 he went to the Art Students League. In 1929 he traveled to Europe on a fellowship to study at the Academie Scandinave, Paris. When he returned to the States during the Depression, he worked with various WPA projects. He and his friend, Willem de Kooning, won commissions to paint murals for the New York World's Fair in 1939. In 1946, using the GI Bill he went to the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Art and in 1950 he studied in Paris. From 1958 until his death in 1985 Loew taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. His work is represented in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, and the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine.

2

Pines Monhegan

Remo Farruggio (1904-1981), Italian-American

Oil on canvas, 26" x 24"

Barridoff Auctions, South Portland, ME 2023
 sold $700 USD

Source: Monhegan Museum, edited

"Remember, a painting is not a picture. A painting has to live for itself–its relation, composition, color, texture–all the elements necessary." - Remo Farruggio. He lived in New York City. He'd spent most of his summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, when, Monhegan artists living near him in NYC on 28th Street lured him to Monhegan. He quickly worked his way into the social fabric and spent summers living and making art at the Lobster Pot. Born in Palermo, Italy, Farruggio came to the U.S. in 1918 and became a citizen in 1924. He studied at the National Academy of Design, then in Paris at the Beaux-Arts Institute, and at the New York School of Industrial Art with Monhegan artist, A.J. Bogdanove. In the late 1930s he was a WPA artist, and it through that he was awarded his first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City. He taught at art schools in Detroit, Michigan in Portland, Oregon in the 1940s and 1950s. Farruggio was well represented in galleries in New York, Mexico, and his native Italy. In 1950, his work was included in "American Paintings Today," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in the "International Watercolor Exhibition," at the Brooklyn Museum in 1955. In addition to the Julien Levy Gallery, he had many solo exhibitions, including one in Mexico City, and another in Rome.

3

Full Moon over Lobster Cove, Monhegan

Ted Davis (1908-1995), American

Watercolor on paper, 19" x 24" (w x h)

Barridoff Auctions, South Portland, ME 2026 
sold $500 USD

Source: various edited

"A picture... is of something; a painting is something." - Ted Davis. Born in New York City, Ted Davis began studying painting in 1927 at The Cooper Union School of Art. He continued his studies. In New York, Davis became acquainted with artists he would also encounter on Monhegan. He kept a 16th street studio in the same building with Alex Minewski and worked with Herb Kallem, and Mike Loew. However, it was paintings by Andrew Winter and A.J. Bogdanove, that Davis saw in New York Galleries that drew him to Monhegan. He first visited the Island with his wife, Evelyn, in 1948, and soon they traded summers in Rockport, Massachusetts for Monhegan. Davis was a fixture in the artist community, selling art supplies from his room at the Monhegan House, and maintaining the artist studio list, a tradition that continues. He showed in New York at the Brooklyn Museum, the Butler Museum of American Art, and in annual exhibitions with the National Society of Painters in Casein, where he was a founding member and officer. In 1997 he was featured in a solo exhibition at the Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, Maine.

4

Private Beach (Monhegan)

Frances Kornbluth (1920-2014), American

Watercolor and collage on paper, 9" x 12" (w x h), 1994

Barridoff Auctions, South Portland, ME 2023
sold $500 USD

Source: various edited

Frances Kornbluth spent fifty-seven summers working on Monhegan Island from 1957 to 2013. From 1955 to 1959 she studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, where she first met Reuben Tam, and went on to receive a master's degree from the Pratt Institute in 1962. It was Tam who first introduced Kornbluth to Monhegan Island and helped define her as an artist. Her Monhegan Island friends and contemporaries included Lynne Mapp Drexler and Elena Jahn. She painted at her studio in Lobster Cove on Monhegan and at her studio in Northeastern Connecticut. She worked in oil, pastel, acrylic, watercolor, ink and mixed media collage. Her work is associated with Abstract Expressionism. She was a member of the National Association of Women Artists, a charter member of the National Museum of Women in the Arts and a founding member of Women Artists of Monhegan Island.

5

The Moon-Driven Sea

Reuben Tam (1893-1970), American

Oil on canvas, 35" x 24" (w x h), 1954

Displayed at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 

Provenance: Hirschhorn Museum Collection, Sotheby's NY, 1995

Barridoff Auctions, South Portland, ME 2021
sold $8,500 USD

Source: Wiki, edited
Reuben Tam (1916–1991) was a Chinese American landscape painter, educator, poet and graphic artist. He's best known for his referential abstract landscape paintings showing both land and sea. In his later career he worked more in pure abstraction. Tam was born in Kauai, Hawaii, in 1916. He received a degree in education in 1937 from the University of Hawaii and was briefly a public school teacher before attending graduate courses at the California School of Fine Arts. In 1941 he moved to New York. From 1946 to the 1974, he taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. One of his notable students from BMAS was Frances Kornbluth. (See painting 4 above.) Around 1950 he began spending many summers painting on Monhegan Island. He later taught courses at Queens College (City College of New York) and Oregon State University.

6

Untitled

Lynne Drexler (1928-1999), American

Watercolor on paper, 18" x 12" (w x h), 1959

Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

Source: Wiki, various, edited
Born in Virginia, Lynne Mapp Drexler (1928-1999) moved to New York City in the mid to late 1950's to further her study art under Robert Motherwell and Hans Hoffman. She and her husband bought a summer house on Monhegan Island in 1971. By 1983, Drexler lived year-around near Lighthouse Hill on Monhegan Island. The island people and landscape were the subject of many of her paintings from that time. Her estranged husband spent more time ashore and found moderate success as an artist, while Lynne lived alone on Monhegan. Drexler's paintings became less strictly abstract and exhibited a mixture of abstract and representational influences, though with no substantial commercial success in her lifetime. In 1999 she died at her home on Monhegan Island. Posthumously, her art was profoundly recognized and successful, collected by major museums. Her work at auctions has realized prices up to $2,027,000 USD for paintings, and $208,275 USD for works on papers.

7

Burnt Head, Monhegan

Morris Shulman (1912-1978), American

Casein on paper, 21" x 15" (w x h), 1948

Barridoff Auctions, South Portland, ME 2021 

sold $2,000 USD

Source: Monhegan Museum, edited

Morris Shulman (1912-1978) visited Monhegan for the first time in 1948, In 1966 he bought a house on Horn's Hill and summered on the island until 1969. Shulman worked in oils, watercolors, and casein, occasionally adding conte or pastel. He spent his childhood in Hartford, CT after moving there from Savannah, GA when he was two. He began his art studies at the Goodwill Boys Club in painting and sketching classes. At 17 he moved to New York City and attended the National Academy of Design from 1931-1934. He studied at the Siqueiros Fresco Workshop from 1935-1936 and the following year he was Fresco's assistant at Bellevue Hospital. Shulman's first significant exhibition, American Art Today was at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. He continued his studies and in 1950 he received his first watercolor award, exhibiting at the Biennial Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. Shulman taught at numerous prestigious schools, at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the School of Visual Arts, The Cooper Union, and the New School for Social Research. He also taught at the Philadelphia College of Art in Pennsylvania and The Skowhegan Art School in Maine. His work appeared in Painting in Maine in 1964 at Colby College and an exhibition at Parson's School of Design in 1977 at the New York WPA Artists Exhibition.

8

Wreck Fragments, Monhegan

Alex Minewski (1917-1979), American

Oil on Masonite, 16" x 12" (w x h)

Barridoff Auctions, South Portland, ME 2024

sold $800 USD

Source: Monhegan Museum, edited
Born in Detroit in 1917, Alex Minewski left home as a teenager and joined a circus. Later, he returned to Detroit to go to the Society of Arts and Crafts. He moved to New York City to continue his studies at the Art Students League. After WWII, using the GI Bill funds, Minewski studied two years at the Grande Chaumiere in Paris. He returned to New York City to. In 1954, he came to Monhegan at the suggestion of Nick Luisi, staying in the Novelty apartments with Nick and Henry Kallem. Ted Davis, a close friend of Alex's from New York city, was nearby in the Monhegan House. In the early 1970's Minewski was awarded a research grant to study the sea-life of the Maine coast. He became fascinated with the structure of fish, and studies of their forms filled his Monhegan portfolio. Minewski had many solo exhibitions throughout his career, and he exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York, the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC, the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, PA, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art among others.

9

Moon, Water, Rocks-Monhegan, Maine

Elena Jahn (1938-2014), American

Oil on canvas, 44" x 46" (w x h), 1963

Barridoff Auctions, South Portland, ME 2020

sold $5,500 USD

Source: Wiki and artist's website, edited
Elena Jahn (1938-2014), born in Moscow, Idaho, was raised in Syracuse, New York. In 1949 her family began spending summers on Monhegan Island, Maine where her career as an artist began. She lived in Rhode Island from 1966 - 1976 and then moved to Brunswick, Maine until 1988, when she began dividing her time between her Monhegan Island studio home and Culebra, Puerto Rico. She received a B.F.A from Syracuse University's College of Art and an M.F.A in Painting from the University of Wisconsin. She continued her studies in Paris on a Fulbright Grant. She has taught in college and university art departments in Wisconsin, Nova Scotia, Rhode Island, Norway, and Maine. She was an active member of the Woman Artists of Monhegan Island. Her subject matter spans from realistic rocks, cliffs, sea, and vegetation of her island homes to more abstract renditions of light and sky, figures and sketchbooks of her worldly travels. She painted up until her death in 2014.

10

Blue Green Seas

(likely off Pulpit Rock)
Yolanda Fusco (1920-2009) Czech, American

Watercolor, 23" x 17" (w x h)

Wiscasset Bay Gallery, Wiscasset, ME,

for sale $2,900

Source: Wiscasset Bay Gallery edited
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1920, Yolanda Fusco came to the United States in 1930. With a full scholarship, she attended the Art Students League in New and also studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Fusco had solo exhibitions in Long Island, New York City and Daytona Beach, and participated in numerous group shows. She received a Top Award from the Village Art Center Gallery in New York for The Land and the Sea, a watercolor and one of her first paintings of Monhegan Island. Fusco was a member of the National Association of Women Artists and was one of the founding members of the Women Artists of Monhegan Island group. In an explanation of her theory of art, Fusco said she liked to simplify things. "Like poetry, a painting should be the essence of thought and vision."

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 8

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 8

On Monhegan Island, Maine July 31, 2026, painted September 11, 2026, 12" x 9" (w x h) using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper.
$400

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 9

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 9

On Monhegan Island, Maine July 31, 2026, painted September 11, 2026, 9" x 12" (w x h) using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 4

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 4

On Monhegan Island, Maine July 31, 2026, painted September 11, 2026, 10" x 8" (w x h) using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper.
$300

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 3

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 3

On Monhegan Island, Maine July 31, 2026, painted September 11, 2026, 12" x 9" (w x h) using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper.
$400

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 2

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 2

On Monhegan Island, Maine July 31, 2026, painted September 11, 2026, 10" x 8" (w x h) using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$300

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 10

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 10

On Monhegan Island, Maine July 31, 2026, painted September 11, 2026, 5" x 7" (w x h) using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$200

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 6

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 6 

On Monhegan Island, Maine July 31, 2026, painted September 8, 2026, 12" x 9" (w x h) using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 5

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 5

On Monhegan Island, Maine July 31, 2026, painted September 8, 2026, 12" x 9" (w x h) using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 1

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 1

On Monhegan Island, Maine July 31, 2026, painted September 5, 2026, 14" x 11" (w x h) using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$600

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 7

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 7

On Monhegan Island, Maine July 31, 2026, painted September 6, 2026, 14" x 11" (w x h) using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$600

Cathedrals Woods Artists Art Essay

120 years inside
Cathedral Woods, Monhegan Island
Paintings by 14 artists, 1904-2024,
8 men, 6 women

1
Cathedral Woods
Emil Holzhauer (1887-1986), German-American
Oil on canvas, circa 1930
Monhegan Museum of Art and History

Source: Farnsworth Museum edited:
Emil Holzhauer was a student of Robert Henri. Emil Holzhauer painted on Monhegan Island in the 1940's and 1950's. He came to New York from Germany in 1906 and along with Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent and George Bellows, studied with Robert Henri. He taught art at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1921 to 1942 and then at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia from 1942 to 1953. His art is in many museums.

2
Cathedral Woods
Ralf Freyl (1970- ), American
Oil, 16" x 12" (w x h), circa 2024

Source: various, edited
This painting by Ralf Freyl was on display at The Island Inn on Monhegan for the summer of 2024. Ralf Freyl (1970- ) born in Chicago, was influenced by his parents, a carpenter and a tailor. He trained in figurative painting at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, before continuing his schooling at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in Connecticut. Since the mid 1990's he's lived in mid-coast Maine and painted on Monhegan Island. He's had over twenty solo exhibitions. His website is HERE.

3
Monhegan Spruce Forest
William Partridge Burpee (1846-1940), American
Pastel on paper, 14" x 11" (w x h), circa 1904
Monhegan Museum of Art & History

Source: Childs Gallery, Boston, edited
William Partridge Burpee (1846-1940), born in Rockland, Maine, was educated in Rockland schools and at Kents Hill Academy in Readfield, Maine. In 1882 After briefly advertising himself as an artist in the Rockland City Directory he exhibited in Boston in 1881 and in 1884 was a member of the Boston Art Club. He maintained a position in bookkeeping and accounting, until his travels to Europe. Following the death of his father in 1887, Burpee became an heir to the family fortune which, combined with his painting sales and savings, allowed him the freedom to paint and travel without the financial pressure. He received a bronze medal for pastel at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904 before other shows around the US including the L. D. M. Sweat Museum (now Portland Museum of Art), the Boston Society of Watercolor Painters, and the Copley Society, Boston. He moved back to Rockland in 1913. His art is in various art museums.

4
Uprooted (Orange)
Amanda Case Millis (1986- ), American
Oil on archival panel, 14" x 12", 2022

Source: Monhegan Residency and Penn Studio School of Art, edited
Amanda Case Millis (1986- ) received an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and a BA from Smith College. Her work has been recognized in numerous exhibitions throughout the US and Australia. She has been awarded many painting residencies, including The Monhegan Residency. "I expected to be completely drawn to the dramatic coastline, but the fallen trees and root structures of the woods inspired me. I examine the everyday and the often overlooked. For me, painting is a responsive and mindful act where the aim is not to copy the world but to find a new reality in each painting." Amanda's website is HERE.

5
Cathedral Woods (on Monhegan)
Remo Farruggio (1906-1981), Italian-American
Oil on Masonite, 24" x 20" (w x h)
For sale $4,800

Source: Maine Art Collectors notes, edited
Remo Farruggio (1906-1981) was born in Palermo, Sicily but moved to New York City in 1918 when he was twelve. In the late 1920's he moved from the city to Woodstock, NY, the site of an artist's colony. He moved back to NYC for the WPA. Following a time in Detroit during WWII where he had an exhibition at the Detroit Museum of Art, he returned to NYC where he became friends with actor and artist, Zero Mostel, who in the 1940s built a seasonal home on Monhegan, Mostel collected Farruggio's work. As Farruggio became well recognized as a painter he travelled abroad. In 1964 he began spending summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts. His introduction to Monhegan may have been through his art studies in New York with noted Monhegan artist Abraham Bogdanove, or Mostel. Farruggio painted on Monhegan from the 1940's to 1960's. His works are included in the permanent collections of a number of museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and the Smithsonian Institution for Art.

6
Along the Road
Ruth Boynton (1915-2003), American
Watercolor, 24" x 19" (w x h), circa 1985

Source: David Lussier and Monhegan women Artists, Obituary, edited
Ruth Boynton (1915-2003), while in Montebello, CA in 1930-32, taught in the public schools. She had six children. On Monhegan..."I work outdoors, usually on four paintings at a time: morning sun or clouds, afternoon sun or clouds. The wild, intricate tangle of foliage and woods, and the wonderful pattern of rocks and cliffs intrigue me most. Although the result is realistic, I approach the painting as an abstract, emphasizing varying color and design... My daughter, Caro, the youngest of six children... affectionately named this rock up by Cathedral Woods, The Town Hall, when she was nine years old." Sally Boynton, daughter: "My mother loved this scene." Doug Boynton, son: "It (Monhegan) was a sacred place for my mom." Ruth Boynton of Longboat Key and Monhegan Island, Maine, was born in Boston and was a winter resident of Monhegan the last year of her life. She was a self-employed artist and a member of Women Artists of Monhegan Island, McLean Water Color Society and Vienna Water Color Society. She was represented by Lupine Gallery on Monhegan Island.

7
Bridge to the Woods
Elena Jahn (1938-2014), American
Watercolor and gouache on paper, 6" x 9" (w x h), 2008
Monhegan Museum of Art & History
Gift of the Estate of Elena Jahn

Source: Wiki and artist's website, edited
Elena Jahn (1938-2014), born in Moscow, Idaho, was raised in Syracuse, New York. In 1949 her family began spending summers on Monhegan Island, Maine where her career as an artist began. She lived in Rhode Island from 1966 - 1976 and then moved to Brunswick, Maine until 1988, when she began dividing her time between her Monhegan Island studio home and Culebra, Puerto Rico. She received a B.F.A from Syracuse University's College of Art and an M.F.A in Painting from the University of Wisconsin. She continued her studies in Paris on a Fulbright Grant. She has taught in college and university art departments in Wisconsin, Nova Scotia, Rhode Island, Norway, and Maine. She was an active member of the Woman Artists of Monhegan Island. Her subject matter spans from realistic rocks, cliffs, sea, and vegetation of her island homes to more abstract renditions of light and sky, figures and sketchbooks of her worldly travels. She painted up until her death in 2014.

8

Trail 11, Cathedral Woods Monhegan Island, ME
forest, frame, window, trail blaze
Steve Budington (1978- ), American
Oil and fluorescent acrylic on canvas over wood panels,
partial frame, 26" x 33" (w x h)

Source: exhibition notes, edited
Steve Budington holds an MFA in painting and printmaking from the Yale School of Art and a BFA in painting and art history from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with additional studies at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture. He's exhibited nationally and internationally. In addition to residencies in Vermont, he was a Monhegan Island Artist in Residence, in Maine. He's taught as an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, The Herron School of Art and Design, and currently at the University of Vermont, where he is Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing. Budington is a certified master gardener in Vermont. He lives with his family in Shelburne, VT. His website is HERE.

9
Cathedral to the Sea
Maurice Freedman (1904-1985), American
Oil on canvas, 22" x 36", 1968
Greenhut Galleries, Portland, Maine, $35,000 USD

Source: Greenhut Galleries, edited
Maurice Freedman (1904-1985), born in Massachusetts, lived in New York, and painted in Maine. He took classes at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston until 1921. He then enrolled at the Massachusetts Normal School of Art (Massachusetts College of Art) in 1922 where he also earned a scholarship to continue his studies. In 1926, Freedman enrolled at the Art Students League of New York. After only a year, he relocated to Paris, taking classes at two Academies. A year later, the Lambert Collection in Avignon, France acquired Freedman's artwork. Returning to the U.S., he was represented by the prestigious Midtown Galleries in New York City. In Maine, his art is in the collections of Bates College Museum of Art, Bowdoin College Museum, Portland Museum of Art, Ogunquit Museum of American Art, and the Monhegan Museum of Art and History. His art in numerous national museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, NY; Butler Institute of American Art, OH; Carnegie Museum of Art, PA; Denver Art Museum, CO; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA;  Milwaukee Art Museum, WI; New Britain Museum of Art, CT; Peabody Essex Museum, MA; Pennsylvania Museum of Fine Arts, PA; Provincetown Art Association and Museum, MA; and the Smithsonian Museum of Art and History, Washington DC.

10
Monhegan Woods
Sarah Freedman McPherson (1894-1978), American
Pastel on paper, 10" x 14" (w x h)
2026 sold $1,300 USD
Barridoff Auction, South Portland, ME

Source: The Lost Art of Sarah McPherson, New York and more, edited
Sarah Freedman McPherson (1894-1978) was a painter and art instructor in New York City. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, she summered on Monhegan Island, ME for fifty years from when she was 32-years-old until her passing, 1928-78. Well-known and loved on Monhegan, McPherson would sometimes hang her work by clothespins at the back of Monhegan's Periwinkle coffee shop, selling her miniatures for as little as five dollars. She was a bohemian artist who was part of the Greenwich Village circle that included John Reed, Rockwell Kent, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Eugene O'Neill. She lived in Paris during the 1920s and was the subject of a series of photographs by Man Ray. She was a friend to Marcel Duchamp, Djuna Barnes, and other avant-garde artists and writers. Her work was little exhibited in her lifetime but was praised highly by critics and by her wide circle of artist friends. Her early work consisted primarily of large pastels but she later produced mostly watercolor miniatures in a neo-primitive style, taking on a variety of subjects including wheel barrels, oil lamps, seagulls, and nudes.

11
Cathedral Pines, Monhegan, Maine
Charles De Carlo (1911-2003), American
Oil, 20" x 24" (w x h), circa 1960
Baker Gallery and Auctions, Provincetown, MA, $950

Source: Various
Charles DeCarlo (1911-2003) studied at the Art Students' League and the National Academy of Design in New York and with Josef Albers at the Yale School of Design. He was a frequent exhibitor with the Connecticut Water Color Society beginning in 1939. After serving in the U.S. Army, he studied art with Jerry Farnsworth in 1946. DeCarlo shared an art studio with his brother, artist Victor DeCarlo, in New Haven, Connecticut in 1954, and continued to travel to Cape Cod during the summer months until he ultimately settled in Wellfleet, Massachusetts with his wife, artist Doris Dickason in 1972. His art is in the Addison Gallery of American Art, The New Britain Museum of American Art and the Provincetown Art Association & Museum.

12
Monhegan, Cathedral Woods
Meyers Rohowsky (1900-1974), American
Oil on canvas, 24" x 30" (w x h), 1960
Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, NY

Source: Various
Meyers Rohowsky (1900-1974), born in Norwich, Connecticut lived in New Jersey, where he was the President of the New Jersey Artists Equity. He was a painter, sculptor, muralist, and teacher. He painted on Monhegan Island in 1946 and more works of Monhegan Island in the 1950s and 1960s. He was WPA artist, first in Newark and then in New York. He exhibited at the Whitney Museum, NY and in 1977 his NYC WPA Art at Parsons School of Design. He painted WPA murals at De Witt Clinton High School, Bronx, NY, the U.S. Naval Reserve, Whitestone, NY, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ, and the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ.

13
Tree of Age
Lynne Mapp Drexler (1928-1999), American
Oil on canvas, 36" x 48" (w x h), 1981
Monhegan Museum of Art and History

Source: Wiki, various, edited
Tree of Age was one of Drexler's earlier representational works with a clear connection to her coming abstract paintings, reflecting a blend of the real and the imagined.. Born in Virginia, Lynne Mapp Drexler (1928-1999) moved to New York City in the mid to late 1950's to further her study art under Robert Motherwell and Hans Hoffman. She and her husband bought a summer house on Monhegan Island in 1971. By 1983, Drexler lived year-around near Lighthouse Hill on Monhegan Island, an artists' haven off the coast of Maine. The island people and landscape were the subject of many of her paintings from that time. Her husband spent more time ashore and found moderate success as an artist, while Lynne lived alone on Monhegan. Drexler's paintings became less strictly abstract and exhibited a synthesis of abstract and representational influences, though with no substantial commercial success in her lifetime. In 1999 she died at her home on Monhegan Island. Posthumously, her art was profoundly recognized and successful, collected by major museums. Her work at auctions has realized prices up to $2,027,000 USD for paintings, and $208,275 USD for works on papers.

14
Untitled
Dana Matthews (1971- ), American
Oil on canvas, 12" x 16" (w x h), 2021

Source: various including the artist's website, edited
Born in Alabama, where she received a BFA, then on to RISD where she received her MFA, she has called New York her second home for nearly 30 years. She's participated in various shows from Hudson, NY to the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden Holland. She is represented in domestic and international collections and has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the United States, including the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE, and in NYC the Chashama nonprofit, as well as the ACA Gallery. From 1993-2003 she had a dozen solo shows. Her website is HERE.

For an illustrated online digital read: On Island, Women Artists of Monhegan, which is online HERE.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

end

Inside Cathedral Woods - original poem

Inside Cathedral Woods 

by Bruce McMillan, 9/10/2026

(a sixteen line poem to take you there...)

On an island, Monhegan, tall 
spruce trunks form a high canopy, 
as shafts of sunlight slant their way 
through.

While one's eyes are drawn up, skyward, 
underfoot, fallen spruce needles 
form a soft carpet, a light red 
hue.

Serene quiet fills the moist woods. 
It invites a pause to embrace 
the stillness; its calm envelops 
you.

Standing among greens, moss, ferns, and 
sprouting seedlings, the future woods 
invites a close look, the coming 
view.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Inside Woods Color Rhyme

Through 

hue 

you 

view.

Photo (July 31, 2026 ) and text copyright Bruce McMillan 2026

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 2

Inside Cathedral Woods Etude 2

On Monhegan Island, Maine July 31, 2026, painted September 6, 2026, 12" x 9" (w x h) using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Cathedral Woods - Robert Henri Visual Essay

 Robert Henri 10 Paintings

Cathedral Woods, Monhegan Island, Maine
1918-1919
with quotations from:
The Art Spirit, Robert Henri (1865-1929),
collected by his student, Margery Ryerson
J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, PA, 1923

1
"A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today
as it ever was. It does not need to adopt new and startling methods."
The Reader in the Forest
Monhegan Island, Maine
Robert Henri (1865-1929), American
Pastel on wove paper, 13" x 20" (w x h), 1918
Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX


2
"We read books. They make us think. It matters
very little whether we agree with the books or not."

The Art Spirit,
Robert Henri (1865-1929),
Margery Ryerson (1886-1989),
J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, PA, 1923

Robert Henri's philosophical and practical musings were collected by former pupil Margery Ryerson and published as The Art Spirit in 1923, a book that remains in print today, over a hundred years later. Henri's other students include George Bellows, Arnold Franz Brasz, Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, John Sloan, Minerva Teichert, Margery Ryerson and many more.Margery Ryerson's art is included in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and had a 2025 retrospective exhibition at the New York State Museum: Margery Ryerson: Art is Contagious Gallery Opening. She lived to be 102.

Jackie

(Student and Quotation Collector)

Margery Ryerson (1886-1989), American

dry point, Smithsonian American Art Museum 

3

"No work of art is really ever finished.
They only stop at good places."
Cathedral Woods, Monhegan Island
Robert Henri (1865-1929), American
Oil on canvas, 26" x 32" (w x h), 1911
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH

4
"Art need not be intended. It comes inevitably as the tree
from the root, the branch from the trunk, the blossom from the twig."

Edge of the Island Woods, Monhegan
Robert Henri (1865-1929), American
Pastel on paper, 19" x 12" (w x h), 1918
Alexandre Gallery, New York, NY

5

"It is harder to see than it is to express."

Woman in a Forested Landscape

Robert Henri (1865-1929), American

Pastel on paper, 12" x 19" (w x h), circa 1918

Bonhams auction 2023 sold $6,144 USD

6
"The effect of brilliancy is to be obtained principally
from the oppositions of cool colors with warm colors,
and the opposition of grave colors with bright colors.
If all the colors are bright there is no brightness."
Under the Trees, Monhegan
Robert Henri (1865-1929), American
Pastel, 1918

7
"A great painter will know a great deal about how he did it,
but still... will say, 'How did I do it?' The real artist's
work is a surprise to himself."
Maine Landscape
Robert Henri (1865-1929), American
Pastel, 1919

8
"Those who cannot begin do not finish."
Woodland Scene, Monhegan, Maine
Robert Henri (1865-1929), American
Pastel, 1918

9
"Whatever you feel or think your exact state
at the exact moment of your brush touching the canvas
is in some way registered in that stroke."
The Woods at Sunset
Robert Henri (1865-1929), American
Pastel on paper, 20" x 13" (w x h), 1918

10
"Keep your old work. You did it.
There are virtues and there are faults in it for you to study.
You can learn more from yourself than you can from anyone else."
The Woods, Monhegan Island
Robert Henri (1865-1929), American
Pastel on canvas, 13" x 20" (w x h)
Sold, Questroyal Fine Art, New York, NY

11
"Brilliancy is going toward color, not toward white."
Sunlight in the Woods
Robert Henri (1865-1929), American
Pastel on paper, 19" x 15" (w x h), 1918
Alexandre Gallery, New York, NY

12
"There is no art without contemplation."
The Reader's Tree
Robert Henri (1865-1929), American
Pastel on paper, 12" x 20" (w x h), 1918
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY