Ship Great Admiral, (oil on canvas, 40 x 5 0 inches, circa 1928). This painting perfectly evokes life in the era of merchant sail. Patterson saw several clippers in service, including Great Admiral and C urry Sark, and never forgot them.
pride-of-place in Memorial Hall, the most highly-co nsecrated space within the Naval Academy co mpl ex at Annapolis. Although Patterson made paintings of warships, co nfli ct formed no part of his artistic vocabulary. In the darkest days of World War II , he dod ged th e noti o n of propaganda arr, completing o nl y o ne painting that even suggested combat. Instead, he remained devoted to the sailing ships of his yo uth . In his later yea rs, his friends watched him grow mo re recl usive,
more vexed by the challenges of life in post-war Ma nhattan. When he died, 9 Nove mber 1958, aged 80, his beloved sailing ships had all bur di sappea red . The "Tall Ship Revival " was yet two decades in th e future. As the lucky brother of Masefield's Dauber, Patterson left a record of fa bulous ships cross ing deep seas. His devotion to duty as an artist resulted in hundreds of fin e paintings that continu e to inspire and influence to this day. ,!,
Robert Lloyd Webb is an author and historian. H is book-length biography of Patterson, Sailor-Painter: The U ncommon Life of C harles Rob ert Patterson, was published in September by Flat Hammock Press. He has also written On the Northwest: Commercial W haling in the Pacific No rth wes t and Ring the Banj ar!: The Banjo in America from Folklore to Factory. A Californian, he now lives in mid-coast Maine.
Saving Our Ships: The Sea-Paintings of Charles Robert Patterson Since C harles Robert Patterso n's death in 1958, his arr has been celebrated in just three museum exhibitions. 1l1is May, Heritage Museums & Gardens in Sandwich, Massachusetts, wi ll open Saving Our Ships: The Sea-Paintings of Charles Robert Patterson, the first full retrospecti ve of hi s life and artistic output. 1 h e exhibition will feature more than two dozen paintings, as well as drawings, prints, photograp hs, magazine and calendar illustrations and other ephemera. Robert Lloyd Webb, author of Patterson's biography Sailor-Painter: The Uncommon Life of Charles Robert Patterson, is guest curator of the exhibition. Saving Our Ships opens Saturday, 13 May 2006, and wi ll co ntinue thro ugh late October in the museum's Ruth Lilly Gallery. Among the nauti cal mas terpieces on view will be: Furling the Fore Topsail, perhaps Patterson's first large painting of a sailing ship; his go rgeo us depi ction of the clipper ship Great Admiral at sea (see image above); a to-weather portrait of the Downeasrer Benjamin F Packard; and three of four large paintings that depict moments in the maiden voyage of rhe ship H enry B. Hyde. (Heritage Museums & Ga rdens, 67 Grove Sr., Sandwich, MA. Ph. 508 888-3300; www. heriragemuseumsandga rdens.org) 16
SEA HISTORY 114, SPRTNG 2006