This is a preview of Sketchbook Traveler: New England.(Volume Three) Schiffer Publishing. Release date: Fall 2022
During his New York City years, Winslow Homer would hide out in his studio with a sign on the door that read, “Mr. Homer is not at home.” Following a summer on Ten Pound Island and a two-year retreat in Cullercoats on the Northumbrian coast, Homer returned to the United States. During a visit to the Maine coast, he decided to establish a permanent residence and studio at Prouts Neck, renovating a carriage house on property owned by his brother. He moved the building closer to the shoreline and provided the modest structure with a wraparound porch for painting in all seasons. Prouts Neck is connected to the mainland by a bottleneck rimmed with sandy beaches; its geology is the same as that of Cape Elizabeth—folded and fissured Silurian bedrock crisscrossed by basaltic upflows. Revealed by ten-foot tides, crevasses draped with marine flora form tidal pools teeming with life. In violent weather, rough seas crash against the shore, launching great plumes of spray that fall like rain on glistening rocks.
This tiny headland had been developed as an affluent enclave by Homer’s brother. It was to become his muse for the rest of his days. Cultivating an image as a hermit, Homer remained very much in touch with the art-world; even lecturing art-dealers on market trends. Fitting to his reputation as a maritime painter, his drink of choice seems to have been rum. Once a visitor asked how so many empty bottles had gotten into the studio, Homer’s wry reply was that he had no idea. He never bought an empty bottle in his life. A child of Irish immigrants later recalled watching Homer sitting out on the rocks, at work on a canvas. Working at the Gem Theater on nearby Peak’s Island, the teenage Sean Martin Aloysius Feeney fell in love with the movies. Hollywood later lionized him as John Ford.
Homer’s studio has been preserved. It is maintained and interpreted for visitors by the Portland Museum of Art.
Homer’s Studio, Prout’s Neck. Courtesy Portland Museum of Art.
Now available to own: Sketchbook Traveler: Hudson Valley
Explore my Quaranteam Dispatches, from April 1-June 8, 2020
© James Lancel McElhinney 2021.
(All images reproduced under Fair Use for critical and educational purposes)