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Watercolor Art of Maine Coastal Coves Essay
Watercolors from 1912-1978 by noted artists Maurice Prendergast, John Marin, Lois Dodd, Edward Christiana, Frederick Childe Hassam, and Charles Herbert Woodbury
The Cove
Maurice Prendergast (1858-1924), American
Watercolor on paper, 14" x 10" (w x h), circa 1913-1915
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
From 1913 to 1915, Maurice Prendergast of Massachusetts painted in Maine, some of his paintings titled Summer Hotel, Maine (circa 1914-1915), Hay Harvesting, Maine, (circa 1913-1915), though it's now clear which Maine cove that The Cove (circa 1913-1915) depicts, it's a Maine cove. He spent the 1913 summer in Brooksville, Maine and in August 1915 to visit Walt Kuhn in Ogunquit and York, Maine.
At 14-years-old he went to work in a Boston dry goods store as a package wrapper. From the start he was influenced by the brightly colored, flat patterning effects that characterized his mature work. He was also inspired by the example of Boston Impressionist Childe Hassam. He studied in Paris and was one of the first Americans to espouse the work of Paul Cézanne. Important collectors like Albert Barnes and Ferdinand Howald became his patrons. A true independent, Prendergast fits into no particular category of modern American art. He had an elaborate highly personal style, with boldly contrasting, jewel-like colors, and flattened, pattern-like forms rhythmically arranged.
Sea and Rocks, Small Point, Maine
John Marin (1870-1953) American
Watercolor on paper, 16" x 20: (w x h), 1917
Grogan and Company, Boston 2019 auction sold $32,500 USD
Marin spent his first summer in Maine in 1914. He was 44 years old. The rocky coast here became one of his favorite subjects. He was among the first American artists to make abstract paintings. The largest collection of Marin's paintings, watercolors, drawings, etchings, and photographs are at the Colby College Museum of Art. In 1950, he was honored by the University of Maine and Yale University with honorary degrees of Doctor of Fine Arts. His 1952 painting The Circus No. 1 hangs in the Green Room of The White House, Washington, D.C.
Cove, Maine
Lois Dodd (1927- ), American
Watercolor and graphite on paper, 1964
This cove is in Midcoast Maine, near Lincolnville, possibly Cushing. Lois Dodd paints around her homes in New York city, New Jersey, and Lincolnville, Maine. She was born in 1927 in Montclair, NJ and studied at Cooper Union before starting a gallery and co-op space called Tanager Gallery which ran from 1952-1962. In 2012, she was the subject of a retrospective, Catching the Light, that traveled from the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City to the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. Her art is in many museums and she is the recipient of many awards, including the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters 1991 Purchase Prize.
Lobster Cove (Monhegan)
Edward Christiana (1912-1992), American
Watercolor on paper, 24" x 18" (w x h), 1978
$1,200 USD, Detour Gallery, Red Bank, NY
Edward Christiana graduated from Pratt Institute, then a fellowship recipient at the newly established School of Related Arts and Sciences, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute. He was invited to join the MWP School of Art faculty in 1943 and taught there until 1982. His primary subject matter was landscape in Utica, the Mohawk Valley, and notably in Maine, where he spent his summers, painting his emotional responses using expressive color and textures, and bold forms.
Broad Cove, Appledore (Isle of Shoals, Kittery, Maine)
Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935), American
Watercolor on paper, 20" x 14" (w x h), 1912
The Columbus Museum, Columbus, OH
In 1886, Childe Hassam made his first of many trips to Appledore Island off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. During his visit in 1912, he worked almost entirely in watercolor to capture the island's ledges and coves as well as the grand flower gardens of his friend and poet Cecilia Thaxter. His watercolors showed daring brushwork and color.
Broad Cove, then Babb's Cove, is an inlet of Appledore Island that was often used as a swimming hole. In this painting, it's low tide with the curved rock in the background. Working quickly in choppy strokes, Hassam drew the seaweed on the shore, the line of plants on top of the rocks and the clouds in the sky.
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High Tide, Narrow Cove. Ogunquit, Maine
Charles Herbert Woodbury (1864-1940), American
Watercolor and graphite on paper, 22" x 15" (w x h), 1930
Charles Herbert Woodbury of Boston was an American marine painter, draftsman and printmaker. While studying engineering at MIT in 1882, he took drawing lessons from Ross Sterling Turner and the very same year exhibited a painting in the Boston Art Club's inaugural exhibition in the new clubhouse. Only fifteen years old at the time, Woodbury had the distinction of being one of the youngest exhibitors of the Boston Art Club and continued to contribute his watercolor and oil paintings there until 1915.
In 1928, Woodbury, along with Gertrude Fiske and a group of other local artists, founded the Ogunquit Art Association. He taught classes in Ogunquit during the summers, his bold painterly marine visions influenced his students. Woodbury was one of the most sought-after teachers of his generation, having begun teaching on a regular basis while a freshman at M.I.T. Ironically, he had little formal training himself other than a few months of classes at the Academy Julian in Paris. He was president of the Boston Watercolor Society.
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