Don’t knock on wood Portland exhibit celebrates energy and whimsy of Bernard Langlais sculptures

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In the ’60s and ’70s, Bernard Langlais celebrated Christmas like a little kid, waking up early and opening tons of presents. And like a little kid, his excitement lasted as long as there were gifts left to open. But no matter what Santa brought, he’d head off to his studio to play with his old “toys” – scraps of wood, hammers, chisels, metal, boards, saws – to create a new sculpture.

“He was childlike – not childish, but childlike – especially when it came to what he enjoyed doing: his work,” Bernard’s wife, Helen Langlais, said of her late husband. “He just had fun doing it, and I think it looks like he had fun doing it, and I know he did because he worked on it every day.”

That quality permeates “Bernard Langlais: Independent Spirit,” on view through June 9 at the Portland Museum of Art.

Walking into the gallery is like walking into a wood menagerie, with weathered gulls, regal lions and rough-hewn horses standing in the middle of the floor or hanging from the walls. The sculptures and reliefs – some figurative, some abstract – are whimsical and accessible, as appealing to children as they are to seasoned art lovers.

This is exactly what Helen Langlais hoped for when she and curator Aprile Gallant put the exhibition together. In the preface to the exhibition catalog, Helen writes, “Now, in our trouble-filled world, perhaps the positive and independent energy of Bernard Langlais’ work will help to reach, uplift, and maybe even bring a bit of hope and joy to those who see it.”

It does, but the playful, folk-art feel of the work belies Langlais’ extensive training.

“A lot of people don’t know that he’s a highly trained artist and they look at his work and think he was self-taught, one of those guys who carves stuff with a chain saw,” said Jessica Nicoll, chief curator at the Portland Museum of Art.

He did use a chain saw, sometimes. But he also studied painting

Langlais was born in Old Town in 1921, the oldest of 10 children. In later years, he would link the area’s ties to logging and lumber mills to his enduring interest in wood as a medium, but, as Shirley Jacks wrote in “The Middle Years: The Artist,” part of this interest stemmed from his grandparents’ barn, which doubled as his loft space. As a boy, he was interested in drawing, but he found few opportunities to learn about art, other than the how-to books his aunt sent him from Washington, D.C.

After high school, he moved to Washington to study commercial art, but the Navy had other ideas for him. He was called to serve as a painter in World War II, a job that could have him painting a house one day, a canvas the next. When he finished his stint in the Navy, he went to Corcoran School of Art in Washington and earned scholarships that allowed him to study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture summers and another scholarship to attend the Brooklyn Museum School of Art in New York, where he studied under noted German expressionist Max Beckmann. During that time, his interest shifted from commercial art to fine art.

Though the New York art scene was bustling, Langlais went to the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, where he studied and shared studio space with a group of painters, writers and critics who were interested in abstract work. In 1953, he returned to the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Later in the year, he set up his own studio, where he met Helen.

The two dated for a while, but in 1954, Langlais left for Oslo, Norway, on a Fulbright scholarship to study the work of Edvard Munch, who painted “The Scream.” Helen wasn’t sure what would happen, but shortly after he arrived, he wrote Helen to ask her to join him in Norway and to marry him. The two were wed in 1955.

“He did figurative work there and the colors were wonderful,” Helen Langlais said. “I loved them.”

After a holiday in Spain, they returned to New York, where Langlais soon had a one-man show at the Roko Gallery. The couple moved into a loft in Manhattan and bought a summer cottage in Cushing, “a shack, really,” as Helen says.

“Then he discovered working with wood sort of accidentally,” she said.

The cottage needed work. A lot of work. Langlais bought some lumber to refinish the floors and build new walls. When it came time to finish the final wall, Langlais had a pile of wood scraps leftover from the other work. He didn’t want to see the scraps go to waste, so he decided to piece them together like a puzzle rather than use new boards.

“He said, ‘Why use the fresh boards? Why not use the bits and pieces for the last wall?'”

He had so much fun doing it that he built a new wall in their Manhattan loft, too, which was conveniently located above one of the few lumberyards in the city.

“He discovered he really enjoyed it very, very much – much more than he enjoyed painting,” Helen Langlais said. “Then he ran out of walls. And then it occurred to him, ‘If I can make walls, why can’t I make things that hang on the walls?'”

The rest, as they say, is art history. During a show at the Area Gallery, an artists’ cooperative, his abstract, sometimes rough collages of wood scraps captured the attention of New York’s art elite. He was invited to show work in a group exhibition at the Martha Jackson Gallery and later agreed to a one-man show at the Leo Castelli Gallery, which was the gallery at the time.

“All of a sudden the art world in New York really liked that work, which was great,” Helen said.

But Castelli made the mistake of asking the fiercely independent Langlais to make more sculptures like the ones that appealed to him.

“That was the end of his relationship with Leo Castelli,” Nicoll said. “Any other artist would’ve said, ‘Sure, Mr. Castelli, you’re the most influential gallery owner in New York right now. I’ll do whatever you want.'”

Langlais didn’t care about what other people wanted him to do. He cared about what he thought he should do and what was fun to him – whether it was a group of polelike bears, a bird on a board, or a group of cats, each with its own mischievous personality. For a while, after he found out his astrological sign was Leo, Langlais made a lot of lions, with big eyes and pensive faces.

Each of Langlais’ creations, whether abstract or figurative, seems to have a life of its own, a personality, a spirit, which his wife attributes to his technique.

“What he enjoyed so much about it was that it’s more of a hands-on thing than painting,” Helen said. “With painting, the brush comes between you and the canvas. … He felt so much closer to the soul of what he was working on.”

His passion for his work is one reason he was so prolific. At the time of his death in 1977, there were 103 sculptures on the Langlais property alone, not including paintings and pieces in private collections. The 80-acre grounds are still full of larger-than-life figures that Langlais created before his death. Several have fallen victim to the elements, but many have survived with a little help.

“They and I are aging together and sometimes I see things that make me laugh because I see things happening to them that are happening to me,” said Helen, now 72.

A little wear and tear wasn’t enough to keep Helen from attending the opening of the Portland show, where the reaction was just as she’d hoped – plenty of smiles, a bit of surprise, an appreciation for her husband’s childlike fascination with the world, and a celebration of his independent spirit.

“Bernard Langlais: Independent Spirit” is on view through June 9 at the Portland Museum of Art. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday; and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Starting Memorial Day, the museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, as well. For information, call (800) 639-4067 or visit www.portlandmuseum.org. A show of Langlais’ pen-and-ink drawings and early oils opens Friday and runs through Memorial Day at the nearby June Fitzpatrick Gallery, located at 112 High St. in Portland. For more information, call 772-1961.