"Hangin' On," oil on panel, 24" x 30"
Above, the Gloucester schooner Stiletto, a semi-knockabout ofMc Manus design,fishedfor twenty years as a mackerel seiner, haddocker and halibuter, and sometimes freighted bulk herring from Newfoundland during the winter. Here, in rising wind and seas, the men are furling the jib topsail on a lifting bowsprit. With the next swell they will again be plunged into the sea. Below, after a hearty breakfast the early-rising crews sliced bait, readied their trawl tubs and launched the dories. "A Flying Set," oil on canvas, 25 " x JR"
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challenged Whistleron what grounds he felt entitled to charge a handsome fee for a picture he had painted in and hour and a half. Was his time really worth so much? Whistler replied,"No, it was for the knowledge gained through a lifetime." While Tom Hoyne's paintings take much longer to complete that Whistler' s did, the knowledge from a lifetime's experience is no less vital to his painting style. With Tom Hoyne, both art and ships have been a lifetime preoccupation. As a young boy summering in Ogonquit, Maine ,he became fascinated with the great ships that remained from the Golden Age of the Gloucester fishing fleet. It was here also that he became acquainted with marine artist Gordon Grant, whose encouragement and interest in marine subjects fueled his own growing interest. After college at the University of Illinois, he was made an officer in the US Navy ' s Amphibious force . As gunnery officer on the LST 48 with its crew of 12 officers and 125 men, he participated in the landing on Okinawa and patrolled the often turbulent Pacific. But there is one moment that galvanized his interest in painting ships- that was his first viewing of the movie Captains Courageous in Gloucester. He says : "The subject of the story was the Gloucester fi shing fleet and I was completely taken by it. In fact it started a lifelong interest in the New England fishing industry , its ships and traditions. I started drawing fishing schooners and building models of them, and have been doing so from that day to the present." That day was in 1938. Only since the late 1970s however, has he been able to tum his considerable talents back towards his true love, maritime art, focussing specifically on the vessels of the Gloucester fishing fleet. By now he has painted many of the great vessels of that fleet in all their various aspects and at all the activities a fisherman of that day might engage in. How does he select a particular vessel or aspect of the industry? He says: " It isn't always a ship that starts my mind working. In fact, it is seldom that. It is an activity . .. launching a dory .. . hauling in the nets ... running ahead of a storm ... putting up a sail. I romanticize the action-see things in my imagination, and then begin the long process which results in a painting. Certainly, it isn't taking a list of ships and deciding to paint them all. That would be boring for me." Tom ' s intense interests in Gloucester SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989