Artist Peter Egeli: A Course Made Good
by Lisa Egeli
One ship sails East, And another West, By the self-same winds that blow, ‘Tis the set of the sails And not the gales, That tells the way we go.
collection of the artist
Like the winds of the sea Are the waves of time, As we journey along through life, ‘Tis the set of the soul, That determines the goal, And not the calm or the strife. — “The Winds of Fate” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
I
n conversation with my father, marine and portrait painter Peter Egeli, you’ll notice he doesn’t answer questions hastily or superficially, and so it was when I asked him to talk about his career as a successful marine artist and portrait painter. “We live by grace” he said, before reciting the above stanzas of Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s poem,
Lazy Days on Galatea, oil, 24 x 36 inches Peter built Galatea, a William Atkin-designed cutter, and he and his family sailed her for many years around Chesapeake Bay and beyond. explaining that it represents his approach to work and life. The family farm was on a creek off the Potomac River on the Chesapeake Bay, and my father grew up crabbing and fishing,
drawing and reading. It was an environment rich in intellectual curiosity and capable craftmanship, between his mother’s teachings and his father’s boat building and both of their skills as accomplished artists.
private collection
Sea Smoke, oil, 24 x 42 inches. The skipjack Susan May working on Chesapeake Bay.
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SEA HISTORY 180, AUTUMN 2022