On View
Not on viewObject number1975/6.87
Island Home, Port Clyde, Maine
Artist
Stow Wengenroth
(American, 1906-1978)
Date1968
Mediumlithograph
Dimensionsimage: 9 1/4 × 15 3/8 in. (23.5 × 39.1 cm)
sheet: 13 × 19 3/4 in. (33 × 50.2 cm)
mat: 20 × 24 in. (50.8 × 61 cm)
sheet: 13 × 19 3/4 in. (33 × 50.2 cm)
mat: 20 × 24 in. (50.8 × 61 cm)
Credit LineGift of W. C. Hammond in memory of Mabel Hammond
Exhibition History"Familiar Surroundings," KIA Long Gallery (Dec. 18, 2010 - Apr. 10, 2011).Label TextStow Wengenroth is best known for his detailed and precise lithographs of scenes from coastal Maine. Though they often relied on conventional subject matter, these scenes tend to be impressive for the immense technical skill that they demonstrate. They often feature views of small homes, shorelines, littoral fauna, lobster shacks and traps, and other scenes of coastal life. However, rather than represent the growing modernization of Maine as it continued its partial economic evolution away from resource harvesting and towards a tourism-based economy, Wengenroth’s prints seem rooted in nostalgia for a peaceful, idyllic way of life in the state as they focus on nature, old homes, and small lobstering communities. A longtime fishing village and nexus for the canning industry and the export of natural resources including granite and timber, by the 1960s Port Clyde had long been better known for its proximity to Rockland, a picturesque coastal town and popular tourist destination, and for playing host to artists and writers including the Wyeth family and the regionalist author Sarah Orne Jewett, creatives who often reveled in the area’s quaint, scenic charm. Like many other museums, prints representing traditional regionalist subject matter rendered in a naturalistic style like Wengenroth’s constitute a significant portion of the KIA’s collection, suggesting the recurrent popularity of pleasant scenes like Island Home, Port Clyde, Maine, among upper-middle class and wealthy collectors across the United States throughout the last century.
