The Winslow Homer: Painter, Etcher exhibition at the Portland Museum of Art closes October 18th and I’m so glad that Shugie, Brent, and I got to visit this summer. The people there are so nice and while we got to the museum shortly before they closed for the day, they welcomed us in with no hurry and were really kind.
The exhibit sets Homer’s etchings by the paintings they grew from and treats them in their own right, not just footnotes to the oils.
The Noon Recess
Ralph Blumenthal wrote the NYT article that came out this week; it’s
Jamie Wyeth, Meet Uncle Winslow
Jamie Wyeth makes a pilgrimage to Portland, Maine, to view rare works by Winslow Homer, who has been a potent influence on three generations of Wyeth artists.
Jamie is now 80. From the MFA – Boston:
Jamie Wyeth has followed a unique path, training with his aunt Carolyn after leaving school at age 11, studying anatomy in a New York City morgue and working in Andy Warhol’s New York studio, The Factory.
Jamie Wyeth’s Andy Warhol, from my visit to Cheekwood in Nashville earlier this year
and this is Andy Warhol’s Jamie Wyeth, from (no surprise) the same visit to Cheekwood:
His father Andrew Wyeth was incredibly well-known — this page at MOMA discusses his famous Christina’s World. And Andrew’s father, thus Jamie’s grandfather, was N.C. Wyeth, the painter-illustrator-muralist whose work appeared in RLS’ Treasure Island.
Andrew Wyeth, Man from Maine on view at the Birmigham Museum of Art from a 2023 visit
In the article, Jamie Wyeth describes Winslow Homer as something like a family uncle, a presence in the Wyeth household across three generations. N.C. Wyeth named his Port Clyde homestead “Eight Bells” after one of Homer’s seascapes. Even though N.C. and Homer didn’t know each other, this influence carried through the family. He says N.C. spoke of Homer often, that there was almost a ‘spiritual connection’ and that he “simply stole from him early on.” Even a review of a N.C. Wyeth 1937 exhibit asserted the comparisons with Homer and John Singer Sargent.
Homer lived and worked in a studio in on the coast of Maine from 1884 until his death in 1910, so it’s only right that the Portland Museum of Art have so many of his works and celebrate him with this exhibit. In 2006, they actually purchased that studio and spent years renovating it. It’s open for tours.
Hark! The Lark
From the NYT article:
He stopped at another haunting series of paintings and etchings called both “Hark! The Lark” and “A Voice From the Cliffs” depicting three stalwart women by the sea mesmerized by a haunting cry.
Wyeth wondered, “What the hell are they hearing?”
Homer’s rugged outdoor scenes, often painted indoors, became a wilderness template, influencing the outfitting giant L.L. Bean, according to Bessire, the museum director.
That reminded Wyeth of a story. Linda Bean, a granddaughter of the founder, was one of the Wyeths’ biggest fans, Wyeth said, buying many of their works, some of which were destroyed when her gallery in Port Clyde went up in flames in 2023. Linda, who died of cancer at 82 in 2024, also amassed a large collection of Wyeth memorabilia. Once she summoned a doctor to her bedside, only to flabbergast him with the announcement, “This is the bed Andrew was conceived in!”
The Life Line
Jamie Wyeth says that Homer is even still an influence; that after painting a small landscape not too long ago that he looked at and thought he could see a resemblance between it and “Fox Hunt”.