By Stephen May

PORTLAND, MAINE — The work of Portland native Harrison Bird Brown, one of Maine’s finest painters, has faded somewhat from public appreciation in recent decades. One of the state’s most popular and prolific Nineteenth Century artists, he is best known for his cityscapes and seascapes, which he depicted with notable precision and vigor. By the time he left Portland in the early 1890s, Brown was the best known native Maine painter of his time.

“Vividly True to Nature: Harrison Bird Brown, 1831–1915,” on view at the Portland Museum of Art through September 9, will go a long way toward restoring the painter’s high standing. Organized by Jessica Skwire Routhier, the museum’s associate curator, it comprises some 40 oil paintings, plus works on paper and memorabilia of Brown’s life. Featured are views of Portland and the Maine coast, as well as scenes in the White Mountains, the Canadian Maritimes and Europe.

Utilizing rich colors and filtered light, Brown often suffused his work with brooding undertones that give his romanticized paintings enduring appeal. As Routhier observes, “In his lifetime, Brown was recognized as a painter of works with vigor, that challenged the viewer, that were not always pleasantly beautiful but frequently disquieting, thus embodying the tensions of the age which shaped his art.”

Growing up in Portland, young Harry Brown showed early drawing ability. After his father died when he was 15, the future artist left school to become the star apprentice at Forbes and Wilson, the prominent Portland house and ship painters. The teenager gained the approval of his employer with accomplished painted signs and landscapes covering the walls of the firm.

Completing his apprenticeship around 1850, Brown struck out on his own, advertising himself as “H.B. BROWN, Banner, Sign and Ornamental PAINTER.” Over the next few years, while turning out various “fancy” pieces, temperance and military banners, and signs for local businesses, he experimented with portraits, marines and landscapes.

Like pioneering Portland landscape painter Charles Codman (1800–1842), who earlier did banner and decorative work on the side, Brown’s canvases attracted the admiration of the city’s chief art critic, John Neal. He described an early Brown landscape as “really rich, clever, and full of promise….I urged him, with all earnestness, to try his hand at landscapes, sea views, etc., to begin at once, and to lose no time.”

By the late 1850s, Brown had switched from ornamental artist to full-time easel painter, displaying canvases of the White Mountains and other sites around town. His paintings were collected by prominent Portland families and native son Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He exhibited at the prestigious National Academy of Design, starting in 1858, and at the Boston Atheneum as early as 1860. Brown’s works were displayed at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 and the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

As his career progressed, Brown built a large Italianate home at 400 Danforth Street. Eventually he relocated his studio there, where he painted and exhibited until moving to England in 1893. Notable for its asymmetrical façade and overhanging roof with brackets, the house remains a handsome presence in the Western Promenade neighborhood. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Between 1886 and 1893, Brown occupied a substantial summer studio on picturesque Cushing Island, just off Portland and known as the “gem of Casco Bay.” Around 1892, a Portland Daily Advertiser article gushed about the warmth with which he greeted visitors, adding that “His manner is dignified and gentle, and one readily understands why he is a favorite with young and old.”

Gentlemanly, outgoing and sporting a full beard, Brown was a leader in the Portland art community. He helped found and was president of the Portland Society of Art, predecessor of the Portland Museum of Art, and advocated erection of Maine native Franklin Simmons’s grand Civil War memorial in Monument Square.

Early in his career, Brown painted “homestead” portraits of residences of leading Portland families. One of the best is “View of Captain John Brown Coyle’s House,” before 1861, depicting the impressive white mansion with widow’s walk and garden gazebo built by a founder of what became the Eastern Steamship Lines.

Equally impressive is “View of the F.O.J. Smith House,” the rundown former home of a congressman who assisted Samuel F.B. Morse with work on the electric telegraph and edited a local newspaper. Painted around 1880–1881, Brown’s portrayal of the abandoned structure, surrounded by trees and overgrown shrubs, suggests “his persistent interest in the dominance of nature over the edifices of humankind,” says curator Routhier. “Forest Home,” the only house in Maine designed by Asher Benjamin, was located in what is now Baxter Woods. It no longer stands.

A more modest structure is the backdrop for a charming vignette of everyday life on an island farm, “Farmhouse on Great Chebeague Island, Casco Bay,” 1888, hailed by the Portland newspaper as “a bit of real life true to nature.” During summer painting treks along the Saco River, Brown executed an evocative oval painting, “Natural Pool,” circa 1860–1880, which puts one in mind of the sylvan scenes of Asher B. Durand.

One of Brown’s most beautifully painted scenes of his hometown, “View of the Forest City Sugar Refinery, Portland, from Across the Fore River,” circa 1860, is an idyllic view of the expansive industrial site, seen beyond the tranquil water of the river. Sited on the Portland Waterfront behind the Maine Central Railroad tracks, the sugar refinery is no more.

Brown portrayed other notable structures around the state, such as “Norlands Homestead, Livermore, Maine,” circa 1883, showing the handsome country domain of the distinguished Washburn family. Today, the property is maintained as the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center and Museum and is open to the public.

Brown’s mature work, particularly his marines, convey an edginess, suggesting ominous threats to serene scenes. As Routhier puts it, “Brown’s paintings consistently explore the dark and dramatic aspects of nature, with storm-ridden skies, looming cliffs and moldering ruins contributing to his romantic, at times almost gothic, vision.” His “perennial theme,” she emphasizes, is “the subjugation of humanity to nature.”

Brown is probably most famous for dramatic views along the state’s rocky shoreline, such as “Approaching Storm, Maine Coast,” circa 1870. “Sailing on Casco Bay,” no date, conveys the joys of boating near Portland.

One of his favorite subjects, waves crashing against Cushing Island’s rugged headland, is exemplified by “Fog at White Head,” after 1885, and untitled (White Head, Cushing Island), circa 1890s. The latter was reproduced on postcards.

During sojourns in the Canadian Maritimes, Brown turned out sketches and oils, such as the deceptively peaceful “Camping at Grand Manan with the W.H. Pratt of Boston Offshore,” 1870. It is one of his most ambitious and technically accomplished canvases. Juxtaposed against the carefree campers on shore and sailboats on the brilliant waters is an imposingly rocky coastline and a storm approaching. As Routhier observes, “The frailty of human endeavors is exposed alongside the staggering cliffs, singing waves and glowering thunderheads of nature.”

By contrast, his unpopulated seascape “Standing Rocks,” circa 1870, emphasizes powerful Atlantic waves smiting jutting, rocky promontories on Cape Blomidon on the Nova Scotia coast.

Responding to the preferences of art buyers, Brown created numerous marinescapes — probably too many — “saturating the local market with small-scale scenes based upon this formula,” says Routhier. She notes that Brown “is often credited with the genesis of the familiar painted view of the Maine coast — crashing surf and rocky cliffs — made for and marketed to natives and tourists alike.” Unfortunately, some of his later seascapes can best be called mass-market potboilers.

During frequent sketching trips to New Hampshire’s White Mountains, Brown captured on canvas the grandeur and beauty of distant peaks and snowy year-round sites. “Tuckerman’s Ravine from the Glen Road,” an oil dated 1880, depicts an unusual view near the summit of Mount Washington, where altitude and lack of sunlight resulted in patches of snow on the ground even in summer.

In a grisaille (black and white) painting of the area, untitled (River Dam and Trestle), circa 1885–1890, he emphasized the gloomy grandeur of a setting in which a railroad bridge spans a roaring stream.

In “The Heart of the Notch: White Mountains of New Hampshire,” 1890, and “Mount Washington from Frankenstein,” 1890, a photogravure and photolithograph, respectively, created for Maine Central Railroad, elevated train tracks slash through dramatic landscapes. These images, portraying the railroad amid the imposing grandeur of the White Mountains, helped promote the area’s tourist trade.

Visits to Europe starting in 1871 provided Brown with inspiration for studio paintings of decaying towers and picturesque scenery. “A Recollection of Italy: View of Isola Bella from Stresa,” 1874, and “View of Isola dei Pescatori from Stresa,” 1880, were painted during sojourns around northern Italy’s Lake Maggiore. The presence of crumbling, vine-covered towers suggest Brown’s response to lands that seemed to him rooted in the past rather than forward-looking. Like Thomas Cole before him, such symbols convey, says Routhier, “a cautionary message about the fate of a civilization grown decadent.” Brown’s European scenes were highly popular back home.

In the early 1890s, Brown moved to London to join his daughter, his only surviving family member. He continued to paint there, but his important work, which made him such a significant figure in Maine art history, was over.

By the time of his death in 1915, Brown’s once highly popular pictures were largely out of fashion, and remained so for decades. Earle G. Shettleworth Jr, director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission and an authority on Brown’s work, recalls that so many of the artist’s paintings were on the market in the 1930s and 1940s that an auctioneer at Portland’s F.O. Bailey & Company would say to a friend in the audience, “Here’s another Harry Brown. What can we get for the frame?”

The Portland Museum’s comprehensive display of the diversity and quality of Brown’s oeuvre helps explain the resurgence of interest in his work. “Vividly True to Nature” documents the accuracy of Routhier’s conclusion that “Brown’s best landscapes compare favorably with those of the greatest Nineteenth Century masters of the genre.”

The 32-page catalog, with illustrations of Brown’s paintings and images of Brown memorabilia, includes essays by Routhier and Shettleworth. Published by the Portland Museum, it sells for under $15 (softcover). The Portland Museum of Art is at Seven Congress Square. For information, 207-775-6148 or www.portlandmuseum.org.

‘Vividly True To Nature: Harrison Bird Brown, 1831–1915,’

 At Portland Museum Of Art      

‘Vividly True To Nature: Harrison Bird Brown, 1831–1915’

Vividly True To Nature

Harrison Bird Brown

WEB

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Brown’s early “homestead pictures” of substantial Portland houses, like “View of Captain John Brown Coyle’s House,” before 1861, brought him to the attention of potential local patrons. This accomplished oil painting of a Back Cove estate was commissioned by its owner, a steamboat captain. Portland Museum of Art.

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Brown is best known for his seascapes, including this tranquil view of boating off Portland, “Sailing on Casco Bay,” no date. Its size, 131/8 by 251/8 inches, made it attractive to middle-class buyers. Portland Museum of Art.

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Harrison Bird Brown’s frequent trips to the White Mountains resulted in numerous depictions of the grandeur and wild nature of that area of New Hampshire, such as “Tuckerman’s Ravine from the Glen Road,” 1880. Due to its high elevation and lack of sunshine, the residue of snow shown in the trench near the summit of Mount Washington is not unusual, even in summer. Portland Museum of Art.

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Brown’s prints for Maine Central Railroad documented how that means of transportation had increased accessibility to the White Mountains and increased tourism to the area. “Mount Washington from Frankenstein,” a photolithograph on paper, dates to 1890. Portland Museum of Art.

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Possibly commissioned by one of the sugar factory’s owners, Brown’s “View of the Forest City Sugar Refinery, Portland, from Across the Fore River,” circa 1860, made the industrial site look benign and almost elegant across the serene river. Portland Museum of Art.

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“Fog at White Head,” painted by Brown after 1885, and depicting waves crashing against Cushing Island’s rocky cliffs, was created on a scale, 14 by 25 inches, that made it attractive to middle-class patrons. Portland Museum of Art.

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During a Grand Tour of Europe, Brown made sketches that turned into studio paintings, such as this scenic, tranquil picture, replete with crumbling ruins, “A Recollection of Italy: View of Isola Bella from Stesa,” 1880. Portland Museum of Art.

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Brown exploited the muted effects of grisaille paintings to underscore the foreboding look of the White Mountains and the railroad technology that opened them up to visitors in depictions such as untitled (River Dam and Train Trestle), circa 1885–1890. Portland Museum of Art.

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Probably painted as a result of trips along Maine’s Saco River, Brown’s oval-shaped “Natural Pool,” circa 1860–1880, reflects his reverence for nature and ability to capture the tranquility of a stream-crossed sylvan glade. Portland Museum of Art.

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“Forest Home,” on a once-magnificent estate in what is now Baxter Woods, is no longer standing. Brown captured its faded elegance in “View of F.O.J. Smith House, Portland,” 1880–1881. Its owner, who died five years before, had been a congressman who helped Samuel F.B. Morse perfect the telegraph. Portland Museum of Art.

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Brown’s painting of a modest old farmer’s house on an island, shaded by an apple tree and animated with children at play, “Farmhouse on Great Chebeague Island, Casco Bay,” 1888, was applauded by local observers. Portland Museum of Art.

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Sited on an island between New Brunswick and the easternmost point of Maine, “Camping on Grand Manan with the W.H. Pratt of Boston Offshore,” 1870, suggests that the sunny day being enjoyed by carefree campers and boaters will soon be overtaken by the storm approaching from the left. Portland Museum of Art.

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This otherwise serene painting of Italy’s Lake Maggiore, “View of Isola dei Pescatori from Stresa,” 1890, is dominated by crumbling, vine-encrusted ruins to the left, a symbol to Brown of a civilization in decay. Portland Museum of Art.

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“The Heart of the Notch: White Mountains of New Hampshire,” an 1890 photogravure, was used as a promotional piece. In it Brown underscored the engineering marvel of the railroad cruising through the dramatic terrain of Franconia Notch. Portland Museum of Art.

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A favorite site during Brown’s sojourns in the Canadian maritime provinces was Cape Blomidon on the Nova Scotia coast, where he recorded the crash of Atlantic waves on jutting rock formations in paintings like “Standing Rocks,” no date. Portland Museum of Art.

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Probably based on a print Brown studied before he traveled to Europe, untitled (possibly the Jungfrau from Kleine Scheidigg), 1866, appears to depict a venerable mill, rushing stream, road, valley and town beneath the snow-crowned peaks of Switzerland’s famous mountain. Portland Museum of Art.

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In this beautiful estate portrait, “Norlands Homestead, Livermore, Maine,” circa 1893, Brown captured the expansive country spread of the Washburns, one of the great political and industrial families of the Nineteenth Century. Today, as the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center, it offers multifaceted insights into rural life of yesteryear. Farnsworth Art Museum.

This photograph of the 43-year-old bewhiskered artist was taken in 1874 when Brown had become a leader of Portland’s artistic community. Maine Historic Preservation Commission.