Exhibitions The dynamic exhibition program began with a focus on French art with Edgar Degas: The Private Impressionist. His portraits of family and friends and images of dancers behind the scenes provided a glimpse into the artist’s private world. Summer ushered in a pictorial adventure to the French coast with The Draw of the Normandy Coast, 1860–1960, which explored the importance of seaside towns Honfleur, Le Havre, and Étretat in the work of Claude Monet, Gustave Courbet, Henri Matisse, and other artists. From Portland to Paris: Mildred Burrage’s Years in France celebrated the impact of Monet’s legacy on the Portlandborn artist Mildred Burrage during her formative time in Giverny in the early 20th century. Diverse subjects and old and new photographic practices were showcased in several exhibitions. Making Faces: Photographic Portraits of Actors and Artists featured famous images of Lucille Ball, Pablo Picasso, Martha Graham, and other celebrities, while more private and domestic portraits were on view in the Circa exhibition Tanja Alexia Hollander: Are You Really My Friend? Hollander’s photographs of her Facebook friends explored the relationship between art and social media. In celebration of the opening of the Winslow Homer Studio, the Circa exhibition Between Past and Present: The Homer Studio Photographic Project showcased the work of five contemporary photographers who reprised historic processes to produce images inspired by the Studio and its surrounding landscape. Maine’s crucial impact on American art was explored in Maine Sublime: Frederic Edwin Church’s Landscapes of Mount Desert and Mount Katahdin, dedicated to the works of famed 19th-century painter Frederic Edwin Church. The Portland Society of Art and Winslow Homer’s Legacy in Maine studied the early years of the Portland Society of Art, the PMA’s precursor, founded in 1882, and the artistic relationship between Winslow Homer and his Maine contemporaries. The year culminated in the groundbreaking exhibition Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine, which examined Homer’s Prouts Neck œuvre and his revolutionary approach to marine painting with an extraordinary selection of his late masterworks. More than 79,000 visitors took advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience Homer’s art.
Opposite, top: Ralston Crawford (United States, 1906–1978), Nets with Yellow, 1955, oil on canvas, 7⅜ x 9⅜ inches. Gift of Maurice H. and Margery Katz, 2012.32. Opposite, bottom, left to right: Anthony Caro (England, born 1924), Moment, 1971, varnished steel, 4’5 x 8’9 x 6’6 inches. Gift of Guido Goldman in honor of Leonard and Merle Nelson, 2012.12.1. Image © White Dog Arts. Katherine Bradford (United States, born 1942), Woman Flying, 1999, oil on canvas dropcloth, 84 x 72 inches. Museum purchase with support from the Friends of the Collection, 2012.14. Tim Rollins & K.O.S. (United States, established 1984), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—Asleep on the Raft (after Mark Twain), 2011, matte acrylic, book pages, gesso on canvas, 48 x 60 inches. Museum purchase with support from the Leonard and Merle Nelson Social Justice Fund, the Harold P. and Mildred A. Nelson Art Purchase Fund, and the Friends of the Collection, 2012.22. This page, clockwise from left: Frederic Church (United States, 1826−1900), Mount Katahdin from Millinocket Camp, 1895, oil on canvas, 26½ x 42¼ inches. Gift of Owen W. and Anna H. Wells in memory of Elizabeth B. Noyce, 1998.96. Edgar Degas (France, 1834−1917) and Auguste Clot (France, 1858−1936), Before the Race, circa 1895, color lithograph, 19¼ x 22½ inches. Collection of Robert Flynn Johnson. Courtesy of Landau Traveling Exhibitions. Winslow Homer (United States, 1836−1910), Weatherbeaten, 1894, oil on canvas, 28½ x 48⅜ inches. Bequest of Charles Shipman Payson, 1988.55.1. Tanja Alexia Hollander (United States, born 1972), June Fitzpatrick, Portland, Maine, 2011, archival pigment print, 36 x 36 inches. Museum purchase with support from the Friends of the Collection, 2012.13.
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