PHILIP BARTER
Foolish
1989, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
from a private estate
$6500
PHILIP BARTER
Andrew’s Boatyard
oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
from a private estate
$8000
PHILIP BARTER
Duck Pond, Dyer Bay
1991, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
from a private estate
$6500
PHILIP BARTER
Blueberry Field with Gravel Pit
oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches
from a private estate
$8000
PHILIP BARTER
Mt. Katahdin
1990, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
from a private estate
$7000
PHILIP BARTER
Bayberries and Shore Roses
oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
from a private estate
$7500
PHILIP BARTER
Mt. Bigalow
1993, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
from a private estate
$6500
PHILIP BARTER
Still Life with Owl
1997, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
from a private estate
$8000
PHILIP BARTER
Still Life with Strawberries
1988, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches
from a private estate
$8000
PHILIP BARTER Foolish 1989, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches from a private estate $6500
Inquire
PHILIP BARTER Andrew’s Boatyard oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches from a private estate $8000
Inquire
PHILIP BARTER Duck Pond, Dyer Bay 1991, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches from a private estate $6500
Inquire
PHILIP BARTER Blueberry Field with Gravel Pit oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches from a private estate $8000
Inquire
PHILIP BARTER Mt. Katahdin 1990, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches from a private estate $7000
Inquire
PHILIP BARTER Bayberries and Shore Roses oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches from a private estate $7500
Inquire
PHILIP BARTER Mt. Bigalow 1993, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches from a private estate $6500
Inquire
PHILIP BARTER Still Life with Owl 1997, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches from a private estate $8000
Inquire
PHILIP BARTER Still Life with Strawberries 1988, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches from a private estate $8000
Inquire
 

Philip Barter Biography

Philip Barter (b.1939) is a self-taught artist from Boothbay, Maine, who was living in California during the 1960s when he met Alfonso Sosa, an abstract expressionist painter. Sosa took Barter under his wing and added a “charge of light and color” to Barter’s aesthetic vision that in influenced his work for the next fifty years.

While living out west, Barter encountered the work of Marsden Hartley and experienced an aesthetic epiphany. He felt an immediate connection with the Lewiston-born painter. Hartley would serve as a kind of talisman, an artist to inspire but also to move beyond. Back in Boothbay Harbor, Barter met Frederick Rockwell, a painter and sculptor, who also encouraged Barter to keep painting.

By the 1970s, Barter and his second wife, Priscilla, had moved to downeast Maine, where they raised their seven children. Challenged to support his family as an artist, Barter took a ten-year hiatus from painting, working in all manner of traditional Maine jobs—he clammed, dug worms, was the sternman on a lobster boat, did carpentry, and dragged for mussels. In his spare time, Barter studied art history, and with Priscilla they made a life immersed in art for their large family.

By the time Barter returned to painting full-time, he was receiving critical acclaim for his work. Bates College Museum of Art mounted a retrospective of Barter’s work in 1992. The Farnsworth Museum of Art, the Portland Museum of Art, and the Bates College Museum of Art acquired his work. In 1995, Barter was the subject of a feature profile in Down East magazine, and Tim Sample highlighted Barter’s life in art in one of his “Postcards from Maine” segments, which aired on the CBS Sunday Morning program hosted by Charles Kuralt.

Barter has since spent a half-century painting narratives based on the Maine’s fiercely independent people and the landscape of his home state, becoming the “painter laureate” of the region.

Philip Barter: Forever Maine (Marshall Wilkes), a monograph by Carl Little, was published in 2017.

 

Press

June 2017
Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors
Link to Article

Maine Master: Philip Barter

When the Bates College Museum of Art mounted a retrospective of Philip Barter’s work in 1992, the painter, then 53 years old, was on a major roll with regard to his reputation among aficionados of Maine art. His work was winging off the walls of prestigious galleries up and down the coast. Barter was also […]

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Publications

Philip Barter: Forever, Maine
Hard Cover Book with Jacket
Philip Barter: Forever, Maine
Contact Us to Purchase
$46 postage paid in US
Philip Barter: My Maine
Exhibition Catalog 2019
Philip Barter: My Maine
Download Link
Contact Us to Purchase
$18 postage paid in US

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exhibition Catalog 2018
Philip Barter: Maine Oasis
Download Link
Contact Us to Purchase
$18 postage paid in US
Philip Barter: Maine Oasis
Exhibition Catalog 2017
Philip Barter: Maine Oasis
Download Link
Contact Us to Purchase
$18 postage paid in US
 

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