Farnsworth The Elizabethan Galleons
N.C. Wyeth, “The Elizabethan Galleons.” Photo by Joel Plotkin.

The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland has received four monumental murals by American artist N.C. Wyeth as a gift from Bank of America. The paintings, created for the First National Bank of Boston more than a century ago, will go on view at the museum’s Wyeth Center in June 2028.

The murals — “The Phoenician Biremes” (1923), “The Elizabethan Galleons” (1924), “The Clippers” (1924) and “The Tramp Steamer” (1924) — depict maritime trade and commerce in New England. They were commissioned by the First National Bank of Boston, a predecessor of Bank of America, and displayed for decades at 100 Federal St. in Boston.

Bank of America worked with a conservator to remove the paintings from the large panels on which they had been installed, making it possible to transport and preserve them for public exhibition.

“This transformative gift marks the first time any murals by N.C. Wyeth will enter the Farnsworth’s collection,” said chief curator Jaime DeSimone. The paintings expand the museum’s holdings of work by the Wyeth family and its interpretation of American art, maritime history and the relationship between painting and architecture.

Wyeth, born in Massachusetts in 1882, began spending summers in Port Clyde with his family in 1910. A decade later, they bought a house there and named it Eight Bells. The Maine coast became an enduring subject of his paintings and helped establish the family’s multigenerational connection to the state.

The Farnsworth’s Wyeth Center is dedicated to the work and legacy of N.C. Wyeth, his son Andrew Wyeth and his grandson Jamie Wyeth, along with related artistic traditions.

The Farnsworth Art Museum is at 16 Museum St., Rockland. Call 207-596-6457 or visit farnsworthmuseum.org for more information.