Maine Vignettes

The Farnsworth Museum showcases historic women artists with ties to coastal Maine

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Beatrice Whitney Van Ness (1888-1981), Whitecaps, ca. 1926. Oil on canvas, 18% x 22% in. Collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine. Museum purchase, 1989.3. Photography by Alan LaVallee.

Through July 20, 2025
Farnsworth Art Museum
16 Museum Street Rockland, ME 04841 t: [phone] www.farnsworthmuseum.org

Capturing Her Environment: Women Artists, 1870-1930 explores the artistic lives of nine women artists who lived and worked in Maine in the 19th and early-20th centuries. With a focus on how women artists approached floral subject matter and landscapes, the exhibition features artwork by Constance Cochrane, Eleanor Parke Custis, Gertrude Fiske, Lilian Westcott Hale, Anna Eliza Hardy, Mary Ann Hardy, Georgia O'Keeffe, Ida Proper, Alice Kent Stoddard, Alice Swett, Beatrice Whitney Van Ness and Kate Furbish, many of whom were dismissed as hobby painters or overshadowed by male artists in their families.

Anna Hardy (1839-1934), who received much of her training from her father, portrait painter Jeremiah Hardy (as did her aunt Mary Ann Hardy, also in the exhibition), is represented by Blackberries, an oil from circa 1860. "Although there isn't a date for