Monhegan women artists get their due Island museum offers history of local works

This has to be something of a rarity in America: to view an exhibition of landscapes in a museum and then, upon exiting, to encounter the very places you were just looking at.

That is one of the distinct pleasures offered by the show on view at the Monhegan Museum. Many of the images in “A Century of Women Artists on Monhegan Island” can be found on the island, from the colorful gardens spread among granite outcroppings to the Cathedral Woods, that deep fir

forest at the heart of the island. Thanks to the conservation efforts of Theodore Edison (son of Thomas) and colleagues back in the 1950s, and to the continued dedication of the islanders, both native and visiting, to preserving their special place way out in the Gulf of Maine, the connection between art and place remains nearly seamless.

Not to say all is landscape in this excellent survey, but it predominates in the history of Monhegan art, which now stretches back a good 150 years. For a painter, it’s difficult to resist the island’s dramatic coastline. In her 1902 canvas Monhegan Rocks, Helen Moseley (1883-1928) brought out the dark beauty of a stretch of island coast. Moseley was one of a multitude of students of the illustrious New York art teacher Robert Henri who painted on Monhegan. This canvas actually predates by a year Henri’s first visit to Monhegan, leading one to wonder whether it wasn’t Moseley who started that distinguished parade of artists that trekked to the island in the first decades of the last century.

One is also faced with the age-old husband-wife artist question: who was influenced by whom? Nearly a dozen artists in this show had painter spouses, and their aesthetics were often closely aligned, sometimes in technique, sometimes in spirit.

Mary Roberts Ebert (1873-1956) met her husband Charles at the Cos Cob art colony in Greenwich, Conn., where she was studying with John Henry Twachtman. Her two watercolors in the show, of a tidal pool and the Monhegan harbor, evidence a masterful representational hand that may have ties to her husband’s impressionist approach but which hardly amounts to a debt.

Touring this show you might be tempted to make a stereotyping statement about women artists having a special penchant for floral subjects, but in truth the island, at least in late June, abounds in flowers. As writer Louse Dickinson Rich once observed, “There are flowers everywhere, and the little gardens of the island women, surrounded by picket fences, simply boil with prim, old-fashioned varieties.” Especially fine here are garden views by Maud Briggs Knowlton (1870-1956), Constance Cochrane (1888-1962), Isabel Cartwright (1889-1966) and Mary Mason (1886-1964). The last-named is also represented by fine portraits of fellow painters Edward Redfield and Jacqueline Hudson.

The exhibition is full of treasures, from a 1918 woodblock print by Margaret Patterson (1867-1950), in which an old fishhouse floats spectral against Manana, Monhegan’s “nursling” isle; to Sarah McPherson’s humorous foreshortened view of her leg. McPherson (1894-1978), who first summered on Monhegan in 1928, hung her miniature paintings by clothespins at the back of the Periwinkle coffee shop. Passersby were invited to replace a picture with a $5 bill.

Some Monhegan art aficionados base their judgment of artists on how much time they’ve spent on the island. There’s something to be said about the authenticity of the vision of an artist like Jacqueline Hudson (1910-2001), who spent nearly every summer of her life on Monhegan, painting its every nook and cove. Yet who can deny that Dorothy Eisner (1906-1984), who may have visited the island only a handful of times, managed to capture the hubbub of Fish Beach in a memorable, and humorous manner?

Many of these artists merit more in-depth presentations. Not to exacerbate the gender thing, but a watercolor by Mary King Longellow (1873-1956) of a house on the harbor is as good as anything Samuel Triscott turned out; Alice Kent Stoddard (1883-1976) portrays a “child of Monhegan” with as much spirit as Robert Henri; and Mary Vining (1915-2000) could paint waves on rocks as well as William Thon.

In his introduction to the handsome catalogue for this show, Ed Deci, president of the Monhegan Museum, notes that men have dominated the shows at the museum up to now, “in spite of the fact that Monhegan has attracted many accomplished women artists.” This exhibition goes a long way toward correcting that imbalance.

Carl Little can be reached at little@acadia.net.

“A Century of Women Artists on Monhegan Island” runs through Sept. 30. The Monhegan Museum is open daily 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. (12:30-2:30 in Sept.). Suggested admission is $3. The museum is the subject of a feature article in the summer 2005 issue of Art & Antiques.