Portland Museum of Art

The Portland Museum of Art is an art museum in Portland, Maine . With more than 15,000 works of art from the 18th century to the present, it is the largest art museum in the US state of Maine . The collection focuses on works by artists who worked in Maine, such as Winslow Homer , John Marin , Marsden Hartley and Andrew Wyeth . In addition to works by other American artists, the museum shows French painting from impressionism to surrealism , as well as objects of the arts and crafts .

building

Today's Portland Museum of Art has its origins in the Portland Society of Art , which was founded in 1882 . Initially without a building of its own, this institution held art exhibitions in various locations in Portland until the early 20th century. In 1908 Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat bequeathed her property called McLellan House to the museum. This three-story house was built in 1801 under the direction of the architect John Kimball Senior (1758-1831) in the Georgian style . According to the will of the founder, this building was not allowed to be changed either from the outside or the essential parts of the interior, so that the McLellan House represents the living culture of the 19th century to this day.

In addition to the McLellan House , Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat provided funds for the construction of a gallery building that was to be named after her husband, Lorenzo de Medici Sweat. Designed by architect John Calvin Stevens (1855-1940) was the to 1911 in the style of historicism , the LDM Sweat Memorial Galleries called building right next to the McLellan House .

Facade of the extension from 1983

In 1976, Maine-born Charles Shipman Payson bequeathed 17 paintings by Winslow Homer to the museum and donated money for new exhibition spaces. Henry Nichols Cobb (* 1926) from the architecture firm IM Pei & Partners designed the youngest museum building. The extension, named after its founder Charles Shipman Payson Building , was inaugurated in 1983. On January 31, 2006, the Portland Museum of Art acquired Winslow Homer's former studio home from the artist's family. The artist's long-standing place of work, located on the Prouts Neck peninsula belonging to Scarborough, is located about 15 kilometers south of Portland and can be visited on guided tours.

collection

The collection of the Portland Museum of Art is largely based on donations from private art collectors. The museum shows art from the 18th century to the present day with the main collections of American art with a focus on art from New England , as well as European art with a focus on French painting. With more than 15,000 works of art, the museum is one of the largest of its kind in Maine. This block of works was significantly expanded in 1991 with 400 graphic works by the artist from the collection of Peggy and Harold Osher.

In 1979 the museum received more than 50 paintings by American artists from the beginning of the 20th century, which were included in the collection as the Hamilton Easter Field Art Foundation Collection . The foundation's artists include George Ault , Peggy Bacon , Stuart Davis , Marsden Hartley , Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Robert Laurent . In 1996, paintings by George Bellows , Alfred Thompson Bricher , Abraham Walkowitz , Andrew Wyeth , James Wyeth , Childe Hassam and Fitz Hugh Lane were added to the museum's holdings from the Elizabeth B. Noyce Collection .

Other American artists in the museum's collection include Harrison Bird Brown , Charles Codman , Charles Octavius Cole , John Greenleaf Cloudman , Charles Frederick Kimball , Benjamin Paul Akers , Franklin Simmons , Frederic Edwin Church , Alex Katz , Rockwell Kent , John Singer Sargent , Albert Bierstadt , Mary Cassatt and Louise Nevelson .

Three collections of European painting show an overview from French Impressionism to German Expressionism to works of art of classical modernism. From The Scott M. Black Collection , for example, five sculptures come from Auguste Rodin , and paintings by Paul Cézanne , Fernand Léger , Joan Miró , Claude Monet , Pablo Picasso , Paul Signac , René Magritte , Théo van Rysselberghe , Camille Pissarro , Georges Braque , Giorgio de Chirico , Jean Arp and Maximilien Luce . The Albert Otten Collection , which has been in the museum since 1993, mainly shows works of art from the first half of the 20th century. These include the paintings Mai by Paul Klee , Early Morning by Max Pechstein and Stramm by Wassily Kandinsky , as well as the sculpture Position de quatrième devant sur la jambe gauche by Edgar Degas .

From the collection of Charles Shipman Payson wife of the native Joan Whitney Payson Collection . Since 1991 works of Impressionism and Late Impressionism have been in the museum from this collection . These include paintings such as Temps d'Orage à Etretat by Gustave Courbet , Confidences by Pierre-Auguste Renoir , Paysage à Saint-Cloud by Paul Gauguin and Rhododendrons, Boston Public Gardens by Maurice Brazil Prendergast .