Stephen Etnier, Union Station
oil on canvas, 1941, 28 by 36 inches
Photo Jay York, courtesy Barridoff Galleries
Guest post by Carl Little
When my brother David and I embarked on Paintings of Portland, our third book collaboration, we went looking for images that represented the city in all its geographic and architectural diversity. We wanted to tell a story of the city’s evolution from multiple perspectives, with images that would present a vibrant changing city.
An especially resonant image is Stephen Etnier’s painting of Union Station (above). The dark palette serves as a kind of somber foreshadowing of this famous structure’s ill-fated end, its demolition in 1961. As historian Joseph Conforti notes in Creating Portland, “Images of Union Station have served as more than a memorial to past grandeur; they have been a summons to safeguard the architectural heritage that distinguishes Portland as a place.” The loss of that mighty and handsome train station led to the creation of Greater Portland Landmarks.
Robert Solotaire, Passage
oil on paper, 1990, 13 by 29 inches
Photo Jay York, courtesy Barridoff Galleries
Passage, the title of Robert Solotaire’s painting of the Franklin Street Arterial, probably refers to this prominent roadway. Yet it also brings to mind the urban renewal that erased a Bayside neighborhood in order to insert this corridor—an event immortalized in Peter Kilgore’s poem “Portland Renewal Authority” recently reprinted in his collected poems.
Sam Cady, Tower Spire, Munjoy Hill
oil on cut-out canvas mounted on wood, 2008, 18 by 12 inches
Courtesy Greenhut Galleries
Other landmarks survive and continue to be historic touchstones. We included several images of the Portland Observatory, among them a shaped canvas rendering by Friendship-based painter Sam Cady, who was inspired by a photograph of the building taken by Bruce Brown, long-time Portland resident and a pillar of Maine’s contemporary art scene.
Equally engaging is Alison Rector’s The Original Portland Public Library, in which sunlight casts a dramatic shadow across the Romanesque Revival structure designed by Francis H. Fassett. Philanthropist James Phinney Baxter built the library as a gift to the city in 1882. Today some of its interior has been re-imagined by the VIA advertising agency.
Alison Rector, The Original Portland Public Library
oil on linen, 2016, 10 by 14 inches
Photo Jay York, private collection
We could have included a whole section of images of the Custom House on Fore Street but settled on Marsha Donahue’s light-filled watercolor of the blended Second Empire/Renaissance Revival-style building, constructed in 1867-1872. Likewise, if room had allowed, we would have featured more than one of C. Michael Lewis’s stunning architectural details painted as part of a scavenger hunt for Greater Portland Landmarks in 1993. The visage of Justice, looking down over the entrance to the Cumberland County Courthouse on Federal Street, had to suffice to represent this fun project.
Marsha Donahue, US Custom House, Portland, Maine
watercolor, 2010, 28 by 22 inches
Collection Karen Sulzberger and Eric Lax
C. Michael Lewis, Justice
acrylic on board, 1993, 16 by 24 inches
Collection Ted and Lucinda Hart
Joel Babb, Monument Square, Portland, Maine
oil on linen, 2014, 28½ by 32 inches
Private collection, courtesy Greenhut Galleries
A number of artists have painted the city from an elevated prospect. Joel Babb took photographs of Monument Square from the offices of the Pierce Atwood law firm in developing his extraordinary bird’s-eye view of the heart of the city, that gathering place for protests, festivals, and the Wednesday farmer’s market. In the painting we look over the shoulder, as it were, of Our Lady of Victories, Portland’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument commissioned by the city in 1872 to memorialize the residents of the city who died in the Civil War. The bronze statue was created by Franklin Simmons (1839-1913), who also designed the statue of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at the other end of Congress Street.
Alice Spencer, Portland Zoning Map #2
acrylic on paper on board, 2006, 8 by 10 inches
Courtesy Greenhut Galleries
Perhaps no image in the book reflects the changing city better than Alice Spencer’s Portland Zoning Map #2. The artist was prompted to paint her zoning map series by visits to the Planning Office at City Hall when she served on the Portland Public Art Committee. Spencer is the founder of TEMPOart, a public art nonprofit that brings temporary site-specific art installations to Portland neighborhoods and urban sites.
“As you look through this book,” David and I wrote in the foreword to Paintings of Portland, “consider the changing visual dynamics of Maine’s largest city, its growth and development.” We also encouraged our audience to “reflect on the ways in which Portland has been, and continues to be, a tried and true source of inspiration for artists of all aesthetic stripes.” In the act of painting, artists are preservers of place.
Carl Little is the author of numerous books on Maine art and artists. He and his brother David Little have collaborated on three books: Art of Katahdin, Art of Acadia and Paintings of Portland.