PHILIP BARTER (1939–2024)
Sorrento Pound
1983, oil on canvas, 24 x 24.5 inches
from a private estate
SOLD June 7 – July 5, 2024
PHILIP BARTER: Paintings and Drawings from the 1980s and 1990s
Opening Reception: June 12, 5–7pm
This collection of paintings by Philip Barter (1939–2024) were painted during the pinnacle of his illustrious career. They come from the coveted collection of an avid, longtime Barter collector who recently made them available. Barter was known for the bold style of his colorful abstract-like landscapes and his gritty narratives of Downeast life and Maine’s working waterfronts.
A self-taught artist from Boothbay, Maine, Barter went to California in the 1960s where he met and worked with Alfonso Sosa, an abstract expressionist painter. It was on the west coast where Barter first encountered the work of Marsden Hartley, another Maine-born artist. Barter identified with Hartley and was inspired to move back to Maine to paint full-time where he spent a half-century painting the landscape of his home state.
By the 1990s Barter was experiencing success. Bates College Museum of Art mounted a retrospective of Barter’s work in 1992, and Bates, the Farnsworth Museum, and Portland Museum of Art acquired his work. Barter was also the subject of a feature profile in Down East and in January 1995, and Tim Sample highlighted Barter’s life in art in one of his “Postcards from Maine” segments on the CBS Sunday Morning program hosted by Charles Kuralt. Barter went on to enjoy a prolific, successful career. In 2017, Marshall Wilkes published Philip Barter: Forever Maine, a monograph on Barter’s life and career written by Carl Little.
