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Works of marine artist Woodbury displayed■r jflEPiCE5, -This is a love story — a story about a young woman who captured a rising artist’s heart, the love they shared for the craggy New England coast and the home and art school they estab lished on the shoreline of Ogunquit.Charles H. Woodbury, whose marine paintings would earn him the title, “heir of Winslow Homer, met South Berwick native and Berwick Acad emy graduate Marcia Oakes in an art class in Boston in 1885. The next year, after he graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she would enroll in Wood buiy’s own art class. His marriage proposal lives on in family legend. Peter Woodbury of Ogunquit, grandson of Charles Woodbury — whose work is the subject of an exhibit opening Aug. 7 at the Portsmouth Athenaeum — said his grandfather’s words to his future wife were: “I cant teach you to paint, but I will marry you if you let me.The Athenaeum exhibit,“Freeing the Line: The Etchings of Charles H.Woodbury includes Sea-coast Maine and New Hampshire scenes, as well as depictions of Portsmouth, a Woodbury self portrait and oil, “Bow Wave. The free exhibit is“Deephaven by Marcia’s friend, Sarah Orne Jewett, according to Woodbury biographer George M. Young of North Berwick.In his 1998 book, “Force Through Delicacy, The Life and Art of Charles H. Woodbury, Young describes the artist’s first visit to Ogunquit in 1888, a side trip while visiting the York Beach summer home of his fiancee.This family photo shows Charles H. Woodbury painting on the beach in Ogunquit, Maine, circa 1920s.the site of the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. While Young notes that Woodbury was not the first artist to call Ogunquit home, he writes that “it was chiefly Woodbury’s magnetism that turned Ogunquit from a sleepy little fishing village into an important American art colony. Wood bury opened his “Ogunquit Summer School of Drawing and Painting,” inthe summer of 1898, attracting 60 to 100 students a season. The artist, who specialized in painting outside, or plein air, would host the school until the year before his death at 75 in 1940.Grandson Peter Woodbury remembers the pungent smell of turpentine as he walked into Woodbury’s Perkins Cove studio as a small boy in the1930s.“All his students' work was usually lined up,” he said. “It was a forest of paintings that I had to stay away from because most of them were still wet.”The school was well-known in theopen Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Randall gallery, third floor, 6-8 Market Square, Portsmouth.After their 1890 marriage, the Woodburys would often paint side by side. They worked together to illustrate the books “The Tory Lover” andPlant of the Week Specials!Perennial Grasses VersatileViburnums Aug. 1-15th 25% OFF‘see store for detailsOpen til 7:00 WednesdaysSeacoast’s Largest Growerof PerennialsRolling Green NurseryGreenland. NH Phone: (603)436 2732The community struck a chord with Woodbury, who had earned fame for his marine paintings in 1893 with Mid-Ocean, a painting described in a 1900 article by William Howe Downes as portraying “nothing less than the majesty and beauty of the sea.”In 1896, after the birth of the couple’s son David, Woodbury paid Jede-diah Moses Perkins $400 for five acres of rock ledge and pasture land off Shore Road, part of which is nowcommunity. Ruth R.Woodbury, daughter in-law of the painter, recalled in a 1998 essay that a gift shop in Perkins Cove, now the site of Barnacle Billy’s, opened up a special section known as the Artists Comer to sell paints, palettes and brushes to the Woodbury students. Young said when Woodbury died, he was regarded as one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century. Nearly every newspaper and magazine reference to him or his work includes the phrase, “great ma rine painter,” Young said.Young, who is familiar with Wood bury’s work through his long career as a dealer in 19th-century American and European paintings and etchings, will give a lecture on the artist’s work at the Portsmouth Athenaeum re search library on Sept. 18 at 7 p.m. Reservations are required.For information, call (603) 431-2538.The Athenaeum exhibit is organized by the Tufts Museum Studies Program, Exhibition Planning Class, Tufts University. Woodbury's etch ings are on loan from the collection of the Boston Public Library. The Athenaeum is a nonprofit membership museum and library founded in 1817.
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Hampton Union
Hampton, New Hampshire, US
Fri, Aug 08, 2003
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