John Fulton Folinsbee, “River Lane,” oil on canvas, 32” x 40”
John Fulton Folinsbee, “River Lane,” oil on canvas, 32” x 40”

“Maine and America in the Twentieth Century” opens at the Wiscasset Bay Gallery in Wiscasset, Maine, on August 11. The exhibition explores the development of modernism in American art during the late 1920’s through the 1950’s. 

A number of major works by New Hope Pennsylvania artist John Fulton Folinsbee (1892-1972) are featured in the exhibition. Folinsbee’s “River Lane,” 1927-1928 shows the artist’s evolution away from American Impressionism toward Modernism and the influence of Cezanne in the painting’s form and structure. By the mid-1930’s, Folinsbee was summering near Wiscasset, Maine on Montsweag Bay. Important works from the Maine period include “Storm Over Chewonki” with its ink black sky and “Goose Rocks Passage” with its luminous seas and sparkling white waves accented by an orange channel marker.

Slightly further north and eleven miles out to sea, Jay Hall Connaway (1893-1970) was living on the remote Maine island of Monhegan. Highlighted in the exhibition, “Summer Seas, Monhegan,” was painted on a blue-sky day in 1947. Despite the artist’s remote location, he made frequent trips to New York City where he had many one-man shows at Macbeth and Milch Galleries.

Arriving on Monhegan Island that same summer in 1947, Morris Shulman (1912-1978) brought a new type of modernism to the isle. Several large caseins on panel by Shulman capture the fauna and floral life abstracted into vigorous brushstrokes of color.

Jay Hall Connaway, “Summer Seas, Monhegan,” oil on board, 24” x 36”
Jay Hall Connaway, “Summer Seas, Monhegan,” oil on board, 24” x 36”

Other American and Maine artists whose works are explored in the exhibition include Robert Beauchamp (1923-1995), Abraham Bogdanove (1886-1946),William Lester Stevens (1888-1969), Reuben Tam (1916-1991), Morris Blackburn (1902-1979) and James Fitzgerald (1899-1971).

“Maine and America in the Twentieth Century” will be on display at the Wiscasset Bay Gallery, 67 Main Street, Wiscasset, Maine through September 30th.  For further information, call (207) 882-7682 or visit the gallery’s website at www.wiscassetbaygallery.com. The Wiscasset Bay Gallery is open daily from 10:00 am until 6:00 pm and is located at 67 Main Street (Route 1) in historic Wiscasset village.