" The Uninvited" by Thomas M. Hoyne Ill , oil, 27 x 37 inches .
wartime use, the Edmond J. Moran saw action in the Atlantic and Pacific, and logged more than 100,000 miles, on the way sinking two U-boats and towing hundreds of vessels with her 1900 horsepower diesel engine. It is not surprising that the work of Victor Mays is probably more sought after than that of any other American marine watercolorist. His award-winning painting of the research vessel Bear is testimony enough to his extraordinary talents. Built as a brigantine in 1879 at Dundee, Scotland, and fitted with auxiliary steam power, the Bear spent ten years in the sealing trade, until the US government purchased her to search for the missing Adolphus Greely expedition to Greenland. She next went into service patroling off the Bering Sea, and then spent a few years as a museum ship in Oakland , before Admiral Byrd purchased her for his second Antarctic expedition in 1933. In this painting the Bear is seen set in the blue ice just off the frozen Antarctic cliffs . Smoke rising from her stack and her canvas sails provide the warmth in this picture as members of the Byrd expedition and a dog team gather on the ice. What makes his work so unique is May's combination of atmosphere and meticulous craftsmanship which breathe life into every detail in the picture. But today's marine art is not all historical in nature. Take for example James Harrington 's impressionistic ' 'Celebration.' ' Harrington' s work, which has been featured in American Artist Magazine, never tries to capture the details of a particular place, but rather evokes the mood and feeling of an experience. In "Celebration," Harrington blends color, light and gestures of the figures to create, as the judges of this exhibit said, ''the kind of Fourth of July that everyone would like to remember having ." Sculptor Wayne Holsopple focuses on the particular, but raises it to the symbolic as in his tour de force wood carving of "Ahab" in full figure grasping his harpoon and fixing the viewer with a menacing stare. This piece, carved out of a single piece of cherry, epitomizes the single-minded determination behind Ahab's search for the white whale . It represents, too, the kind of monumental courage that keeps men returning to the alien and forbidding environment of the sea. Whales and marine mammals are a strong part of the contemporary marine art scene and this year' s International features works by two of the country's finest artists working with these subjects. Ex-Coastguardsman Don McMichael's paintings are characterized by a waterline perspective which allows the viewer to see both under and above the water at the same time. ' 'Whales Bear Watching" depicts mother and baby bowhead whales and a small pod of beluga whales seen under the water, while just above the surface are seen a polar bear and a starry sky. Very charming and anatomically correct views of these gentle giants are also achieved by sculptor Randy Puckett. His most public work to date is a life-sized gray whale and calf
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on exhibit in the recently opened aquarium in Monterey , California. His entries in this show include three fine scale sculptures of narwhals, dolphins and a huge humpback with a small pod of dolphins respectively. Once the pastime exclusively of sailors at sea, scrimshaw has now become another medium of expression for today ' s talented artists . Contemporary scrimshanders employ all the skills of highly trained artists to create original compositions of everything from sailing ships to harbor scenes and ship portraits using the traditional needle and ink on ivory. In the process, they have transformed this sailor's craft into a fine collectible art. Because of the strict federal laws governing trafficking in whalebone , many of the scrimshanders are turning to work on walrus, elephant and fossilized ivory . David Smith ' s three-part scrimshaw of America's Cup defender Resolute is a fine example of this new use of the medium . It features two highly detailed views of the Resolute , one in profile and the other underway (adapted from photographs by Morris Rosenfeld) mounted together with a portrait of her designer, Captain Nathaniel Herreshoff. Just as the drama of recent America's Cup competition has created a new interest in contemporary marine art, so too has it created a new level of interest in the history of the Cup itself. Artists are exploring the many aspects of the story of yachting ' s most heralded race like never 'before: English artist Tim Thompson ' s painting of the 1866 race between Fleetwing and Vesta from Sandy Hook to the Needles off the coast of England which predated the first official America's Cup defense; Australian artist Ian Hansen's spectacular depiction of the schooner America in 1851 , and Reliance versus Shamrock /II in 1903; Len Pearce' s highly detailed depiction of the 1885 race between Puritan and Genesta; and Willard Bond ' s large, nearly abstract dramatic watercolor displaying the power and fury of today ' s twelve meters. There is much more of course , from West Coast fishing boats , to the Fastnet light, to beluga whales in translucent white alabaster and colorful racing scenes of Bahamian sloops . But like all good art, marine art is about much more than the objects it depicts. Although steeped in tradition, it's an art form fully alive in the present. The elemental struggle between man and nature, the spreading of civilization across great oceans, the sweet sadness of a voyage's end-it is these experiences and many more that today's marine artists endeavor to portray . Just as we find ourselves drawn again and again to the water's edge, so these artists draw us back again and again to the memories and promise it holds. '1 J. Russell Jinishian is the Director of Mystic Maritime Gallery at the Mystic Seaport Museum Stores, Mystic, Connecticut. SEA HISTORY, WINTER 1987-88