GLEASON Henry Isaacs Sailing on a Deep Blue Sea oil on canvas x
Henry Isaacs, “Sailing on a Deep Blue Sea.”

Boothbay Harbor’s Gleason Fine Art will present two new shows in July: “Henry Isaacs: Sailing on a Deep Blue Sea” and “Kevin Beers: Light and Shadow.”

“Henry Isaacs: Sailing on a Deep Blue Sea” opens July 2 and runs through Aug. 3. “Kevin Beers: Light and Shadow” will be on view through July 24.

Both artists will attend a First Friday reception from 5 to 7 p.m. July 3.

Kevin Beers was in art school when abstraction was all the rage. Although he was talented, his professors tried to dissuade him from painting in the representational style he loved. Listening to his own muse, Beers was drawn to the powerful realism of Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent and George Bellows, all of whom fell in love with the Maine coast, especially Monhegan Island.

After school, Beers visited Maine, seeking out the places painted by Hopper, Bellows and Kent — craggy islands, dramatic headlands guarded by lighthouses, sun-dazzled white buildings and intense blue skies and seas.

As with many artists before him, Beers was struck by the quality of light in Maine, by the way it bounced off surfaces, creating sharp shadows and brilliant colors. It would be 10 years before he sold his Park Slope apartment and moved to Maine, settling in Rockland. In “Light and Shadow,” Beers paints the rugged beauty of Maine’s coast and its simple, stark-white buildings.

Henry Isaacs grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a family that valued education and worldliness. His father taught architecture at Harvard University, and the family knew and socialized with many well-known figures.

Isaacs studied at the Slade School of Art in London, the Rhode Island School of Design and the Putney School in Vermont. His teaching career included drawing at Dartmouth, drawing and painting at Mass College of Art and drawing at several European colleges.

Isaacs carries his paints with him everywhere and has painted all over the world, including Africa, Europe and the Himalayas. But his stay in the village of Islesford on Cranberry Island off Mount Desert Island was a turning point in what he chose to paint.

On Cranberry, Isaacs found himself surrounded by the constantly changing blues and greens of ocean water, ragged evergreens and wind-pushed clouds racing through a cobalt sky. For Isaacs, painting the coast of Maine grew from a pastime to a passion. “Sailing on a Deep Blue Sea” showcases this love.

Isaacs reflected on his family connection to the water in a note about the exhibition: “My father rowed, or rather ‘sculled’, on the Charles River in Boston every day – unless there was ice on the river,” Isaacs wrote. “He never raced. He loved the peace he found gliding along the river, meandering through Cambridge and Boston. Despite his earnest hopes, I never became a rower myself. I paint the rowers every visit back to town.”

With a style that recalls the French impressionists, Isaacs paints with energy and self-assurance. His palette of delicate blues, greens, pinks and yellows marks him as one of the most recognizable artists working in Maine today.

Gleason Fine Art is at 31 Townsend Ave., Boothbay Harbor. For more information, call 207-633-6849, email info@gleasonfineart.com, or go to www.gleasonfineart.com.