Farnsworth Art Museum: Art Cannot Be Contained

Wyeth painted his portrait of Ralph Cline, The Patriot, in the attic of Cline’s sawmill in Spruce Head, Maine in 1964. In that painting Cline wears his own World War I uniform. Andrew Wyeth noticed Ralph Cline in uniform at a Thomaston, Maine parade. Wyeth later recalled, “I remember his amazing figure, something about the way he walked, his build, this feeling of very erect. He had on a dark blue uniform of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and a little hat. I was struck by him... I try to leave myself very blank—a kind of sounding board, all the time very open to catch a vibration, a tone from something or somebody—like Ralph Cline.”

The family named the beaches on their island in Maine, and on Driftwood Beach, Eliot Porter remembered its random display: “Along its upper edge, out of reach by all but the highest tides intermixed among the pebbles, periwinkles and bits of wood, is deposited a season’s harvest, the shells of mussels stripped from byssal anchors by winter ice, scored by waves and chalky blue. Scattered over them, a gay celebration, are the petals of rugosa roses, a gift from a bush rooted in the briny soil above the tides, an immigrant from across the sea.”

Cabot Lyman, Founder and Owner of Lyman-Morse Boatbuilding, discusses the George Bellows painting "The Teamster". In addition to founding Lyman-Morse, he has completed more than 150,000 miles of offshore voyages, including three years spent circumnavigating the world with his wife Heidi and their three sons, Alex, Drew, and Zach, on their 49-foot sailboat built at the yard.

Maria Nevelson, granddaughter of artist Louise Nevelson, describes the early days in Rockland for Louise's family, after their arrival from what is present-day Kiev

Farnsworth Chief Curator Michael K. Komanecky explores the history of one of American art's most iconic works: Robert Indiana's LOVE.