MARINE ART
Second Annual Exhibition of the
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MARINE ARTISTS .. WAVERTREE .. by Chas. Lundgren
Featuring Fifty of America¡s Leading Contemporary Marine Artists at the
GRAND CENTRAL ART GALLERIES, INC. Biltmore Hotel. 43rd St.& Madison Ave. New York. N.Y.
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December 5 through 21. 1979 catalog available Nov. 15. •2 00 Monday to Friday 10 a.m.-6 p.m. ~ from: A.S.M.A.. 44 Pearl Road. Nahant. Mass. 01908 Sponsored by:
IOT CORPORATION, PHILADELPHIA, PA.
OF SHIPS AND THE SEA'79
61 Unquowa Rd.. Fairfield, CT (203) 255-4613 56
hand to it. Artists such as Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Sully, Saint"Memin and John Singleton Copley come to mind. Along with those whose names are well known, tthere is a legion who are obscure or virtuailly unrecorded. Every sizeable port, and many of the small ones, had its local seascape or ship painter almost unknown to the rest of the world. These paintings are either lost or have been handed down through the generations of the original purchaser's family with little comment or excitement. Many an old sailor drew a few pictures to recall for his friends or family the old days when he was before the mast-or on the quarterdeck. The growing interest in marine are is beginning to bring some of these people out of their obscurity, but there is still a great deal left to be revealed. American marine art has flourished on and in sight of salt water on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. It has also nourished itself on fresh water-some of it pretty muddy at that. The Great Lakes, are just as broad as some of the worlds salt water seas and shipping on the lakes holds all of the fascination and danger of ocean shipping. This milieu has produced a number of fine marine artists such as Seth Arca Whipple and George Washington Whistler, who was James A. McNeill Whistler's father. And, of course, J. A. M. Whistler is well known for his marine paintings . The Hudson River has provided the locale for a great many marine paintings and the Mississippi-MissourOhio River system has been the inspiration for marine paintings ranging from George Caleb Brigham's "Fur Traders Descending the Missouri" and Seth Eastman's views of the upper Mississippi to numerous works ranging from river steamboats to ocean-going ships at New Orleans. In time, American marine art stretches back from today's vigorous activity to a good many eighteenth and even seventeenth century works and even further to one amateur artist who worked in the new world in the sixteenth century. The artist was John White, an English explorer-adventurer who produced at least five marine watercolors in what is now North Carolina during colonization attempts in the 1580s. The subject of American marine art has been a fascinating study and it promises to continue indefinitely to provide more to study and to delight. .t Mr. White lives and works in Nashville, and invites inte"ested readers to send their suggestions for th1e checklist to him at 3901 Harding Rd., Apt 5([)4, Nashville, Tenn. 37205.
SEA HISTORY, FALL 1979