Bangor students receive gift of art Thon painting seen as appreciation tool

BANGOR – When artist William Thon was a schoolboy in New York City, he spent hours looking at art in museums. His own work eventually ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Art and, as of Tuesday, almost three years after the artist’s death at age 94, at Bangor High School.

The untitled painting delivered to Bangor High is one of 68 pieces that Thon, who moved to Port Clyde in 1940, stipulated in his will to be given permanently to schools in a state that was his muse for 60 years, even after macular degeneration left him legally blind. The schools have the right to make reproductions of the acquisitions but must also protect them and display them publicly, such as in a library, according to the will. While no exact amount was given for the worth of the painting at Bangor High, comparable works in Thon’s collection have been valued at $2,000 to $3,000, according to James A. Houle, legal counsel to the Thon estate.

The Portland Museum of Art, which is facilitating the statewide project, received a bequest of approximately $4 million to endow a biennial

show of Maine artists, a curatorial position and other exhibitions of American art.

As the oils, watercolors and drawings are disbursed to schools in all 16 counties, however, the entire state becomes the beneficiary of the Thon legacy.

“This is a unique opportunity,” Stacy Rodenberger, PMA coordinator of school programs, said Tuesday to a group of students in Kal Elmore’s Art I class at Bangor High. “We don’t know of another program where an artist specifically left works to schools for students to use. The difference between a poster reproduction and the real thing is infinite. That’s why we want you to go to your museum and go to our museum. William Thon believed in that.”

As she unwrapped a small cardboard box, Rodenberger told the students about Thon, a self-taught artist who rose to fame as a landscape painter and watercolorist, and who chose Maine as his home because it supplied the distance he needed from the metropolitan scene. Rodenberger then handed a plastic-wrapped, framed painting to a student and asked her to “unveil” the piece. Principal Norris Nickerson watched as the girl revealed a 12-by-16-inch oil painting of a white house, road and bridge shrouded in eerie darkness.

“It has a strong, bold graphic quality,” Rodenberger explained. “You will be able to look closely at brush strokes, the blending and the creation of strokes. So I think there are a lot of ways you can use and enjoy this in your classroom.”

The students described the work as “stormy,” “lonely,” “haunted” and “like up north.”

Nickerson thanked Rodenberger and her colleague, Diana O’Donnell, a public relations assistant at PMA, for the generous gift and for making the two-hour journey to Bangor to deliver the work.

“There’s a strong appreciation for all of the arts in Bangor,” said Nickerson, who spoke of his own interest in watching painters swiftly create works on TV shows. “Most of the young people in this room don’t understand that appreciation.”

The painting should inspire the young people to seek new levels of appreciation for art, Nickerson added, especially in their own city. Of the 18 students in attendance, one said he planned to study art in college and two said they were considering it as a profession. Only six were aware of the University of Maine Museum of Art downtown and, of those, only two had visited the museum where a show of works by John Marin, another artist with Maine ties, was the next stop for Rodenberger and O’Donnell, both of whom are art lovers. Elmore said students in advanced art classes have been to the UM museum and are scheduled to visit the Portland museum next week.

In addition to the painting, the school received a copy of the film “William Thon: Maine Master,” from a series of documentaries on artists in the state.

“William Thon probably is the perfect artist for this type of gift,” said artist Rob Shetterly, interviewer and director of the film. “When William Thon is at his best, especially in his watercolors, he is as good an artist in that medium as anyone who ever existed. The other thing is: Why give something like this to schools? So much stuff is given to kids these days that is not honest, that is less than what they deserve in terms of care, dedication, persistence. But Thon’s gift gives that to Maine kids.”

Before the two PMA facilitators left Bangor High School, they witnessed early stirrings of the promise the Thon piece holds for fledgling artists in Maine. The students talked about the educational value of the painting, its potential to teach them about brush strokes and creating mood in a work. They also spoke of the role of beauty in their lives, not just in the classroom but in their own rooms at home.

“I think it will best be used as a learning tool,” said Elmore. “It also becomes something for students to look at as a possibility for life choices. Even though I am not training artists, I hope I am helping my students become more adept at appreciating and understanding art.”

Which is exactly what Thon wanted, according to Jessica Nicholl, chief curator at PMA.

“It was William Thon’s ambition to put art out in public places where people would encounter it without necessarily seeking it out,” she said. “He wanted to do that for the people of Maine broadly because he had that growing up in NYC and it informed his decision to become an artist. He was not so focused on memorializing himself or his work, but on nurturing other artists and young people.”

Alicia Anstead is a Style Desk writer. She can be reached at aanstead@bangordailynews.net.