Painters of sea and shore

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 1998 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of great artistic activity in the United States. A by-product was the formation of art colonies in bucolic locations where camaraderie and artistic ideas were freely and informally exchanged. Some of these groups staged group exhibitions or provided living quarters, while others were independent. A traveling exhibition on view at the Lynn Historical Society Museum in Lynn, Massachusetts, between November 19 and April 16, 1999, examines a loosely knit cluster of seven artists who worked in and around the city. Entitled The Lynn Beach Painters: Art Along the North Shore 1880-1920, the show will be on view at the Heritage Plantation in Sandwich, Massachusetts, from May 17, 1999, through October 23, 1999. The curator of the exhibition, Heather Johnson Reid, has assembled fifty-one paintings by the seven artists: Nathaniel L. Berry, William P. Burpee, Edward Burrill Jr., Charles E. L. Green, T. Clark Oliver, Edward A. Page, and Charles H. Woodbury.

Lynn was both geographically and commercially well suited for artists. The shoreline provided compelling subject matter for painters, and the city's early success in shoe manufacturing and later a large General Electric plant provided the prosperity that allowed residents to patronize local artists. Between 1890 and 1920 Lynn was the largest city in Essex County. Because it is only a short train or ferry ride from Boston, artists living in that city could make day trips to paint the beaches and marshes of Lynn and nearby Revere, Nahant, Swampscott, and Marblehead. These were popular summer retreats for Boston's upper classes who erected large estates there at the turn of the century.

In 1870 Massachusetts passed the Mandatory Drawing Act, which required that all towns with more than ten thousand residents provide free drawing instruction for children in public schools and for teenagers and adults in evening classes. The Lynn Evening Drawing School was founded shortly afterward. In the 1870s the artists of Lynn exhibited their paintings in store windows, churches, or any other suitable place, and many went further afield to Boston's numerous exhibition halls and commercial art galleries. Burrill, Page, and Woodbury all taught at the Lynn Evening Drawing School, and Berry was its supervisor of drawing from 1886 through 1893. Residents of Lynn founded the Palette Club (for women only) in 1882, the Lynn Camera Club in 1889, and the Lynn Art Club in 1909.

The Lynn Beach painters were seduced by the rocky shores, marshes, and fishermen - their vessels, their houses, and families. Beginning in the 1880s they fell under the pervasive spell of impressionism. During this time Charles H. Woodbury, the youngest of the seven painters, became the unofficial leader of the group, which exhibited at the Boston Art Club, then one of the most popular spots for art exhibitions.

By 1900 the six remaining artists identified with the Lynn Beach school (Oliver had died in 1892) were diverging both stylistically and geographically. Those who had traveled to Europe returned with new artistic sensibilities, and their subjects became more diverse.

The catalogue of the exhibition, written by D. Roger Howlett, may be ordered from the Lynn Historical Society Museum at 781-592-2465.