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Since the mid-nineteenth century Maine has been both host and inspiration to a remarkable number of America's most noted painters. The Farnsworth Art Museum offers a superb collection of Maine-related works encompassing almost every style and period in American art history. The collection includes early portraits by Robert Feke, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, Jeremiah Hardy, and William Matthew Prior, and land and seascapes by artists such as the pioneer painter and printer, Jonathan Fisher and by the noted marine painters Robert Salmon and Fitz Henry Lane. The collection also includes the earliest known painting by Thomas Cole, the leading figure in the Hudson River School of artists. A collection of watercolors by Winslow Homer is among the most popular group of works in the Farnsworth's collection. The Farnsworth's holdings of American Impressionist paintings include works by Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf and Frank Benson among many others. The American Realist and Modernist Schools are strongly represented in the work of Robert Henri, George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Marsden Hartley, John Marin and Edward Hopper. The Museum also owns a substantial collection of work by N.C., Andrew and James Wyeth. Family patriarch Newell Convers Wyeth first came to Maine in the 1920s beginning a family association to the mid-coast area that lasts to this day. Many of the paintings in the collection by these renowned artists were made in the midcoast area around Rockland. While the Museum continues to acquire historic works to enhance this already stellar group the collection is also strong in contemporary works in a variety of media by artists like Alex Katz, Francesco Clemente, Rackstraw Downs, David Salle, Jennifer Bartlett, Hunt Slonem, Brett Bigbee and Yvonne Jacquette. Adding top quality works to this contemporary collection is an ongoing objective of the museum. |
