One day on a trip with his children to Mt. Desert Island, painter Ed Nadeau took a back road through Surry, just outside Ellsworth. As he drove along, Nadeau came across a small trailer dwarfed by a huge pile of firewood. He stopped the car, backed up and took a few photographs, struck by the […]
In John Heliker’s 1985 painting, Clamdigger with Dog, a man facing to the right looks over his right shoulder toward a black dog sitting behind him so that his face points at us. Behind him, below soft purple hills in the distance, a thick ribbon of cerulean water sets the straight horizon line at its […]
“A teacher affects eternity,” wrote Henry Adams. “He can never tell where his influence stops.” This sentiment is worth contemplating when regarding the exhibition of John Heliker’s works at Courthouse Gallery Fine Art in Ellsworth, Maine. Someone hurrying through it on their way to the next item in the busy summer event schedule Downeast might […]
Joseph Keiffer first came to Maine in the late 1970s with a visit to Alamoosook Lake in Orland. In the years that followed, the realist landscape painter spent time in Somesville and other towns on Mount Desert Island, sailing on Somes Sound and hiking the mountains of Acadia. Although he grew up in Rhode Island […]
Since it opened in 2006, the Courthouse Gallery in Ellsworth has occupied an 1838 building listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The gallery has now expanded into its companion building, the old registry. A show of paintings by Colin Page hangs in the main gallery. I reviewed his recent show at Greenhut Galleries […]
Three years ago, Courthouse Gallery in Ellsworth owners Karin and Michael Wilkes were on vacation in Florida and stumbled upon Art Palm Beach, an annual, international art fair. The Ellsworth couple mingled with artists, collectors and curators as they viewed contemporary art from around the world. This year, they’ve decided to be the only Maine […]
Ellsworth gallery owners Karin and Michael Wilkes embrace a chance to manage the estate of William and Emily Muir, two prolific artists whose substantial contributions continue to impress. Last Christmas, Wilkes’ husband gave her a present that made her smile. It was an autobiography of artist Emily Muir, who with her husband and fellow artist […]
When Tom Hennessey stands at art show receptions and talks with interested patrons, the same question eventually crops up. “Invariably, somebody will say, ‘How long did it take you to do that painting?’” the Hampden writer and artist said. “And right off, I say, ‘All my life.’ That’s the honest answer.” Hennessey’s sporting art flows […]
Susan Amons’ new monotypes are ethereal. To my eye they begin where Audubon’s essays in the surreal leave off. They have a dreamlike quality that fits that term, but that’s only a part of what I see. I also see Japanese screens and a lyricism that I can’t assign to anyone else. I don’t suppose […]
Artist Stephen Pace recently selected Courthouse Gallery Fine Art to represent his work in Maine. Pace artwork at the gallery includes oil paintings, drawings and watercolors with subjects such as Maine scenes, abstracts, horses and nudes. Gallery owners Karin and Michael Wilkes met Pace and his wife Pam in 2007 when they hosted a farewell-to-Maine […]