CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPY AT THE WINSLOW HOMER STUDIO ON VIEW THIS FALL AT THE PORTLAND MUSEUM OF ART

Portland, Maine - In conjunction with the restoration of the Winslow Homer Studio and its opening in the fall, the Portland Museum of Art will present Between Past and Present: The Homer Studio Photographic Project, on view October 6 through February 17, 2013. This exhibition of work by five contemporary photographers will feature a variety of historic processes in use during Winslow Homer’s lifetime. From tintypes to platinum prints, salt prints to gum bichromate prints, these historical processes in the hands of today’s photographers simultaneously evoke the past and capture the present. Between Past and Present: The Homer Studio Photographic Project is the sixth in a series of exhibitions called Circa, that explores compelling aspects of contemporary artists in the state of Maine and beyond.

The Museum has commissioned a group of photographers to produce images of the Homer Studio, located in Prouts Neck, Maine, to include architectural studies, views of the landscape, interior scenes, and even still-life subjects of the few objects that survive from Homer’s day. This distinctive group of contemporary photographers, best known for their use of historic processes, includes Abelardo Morell from Brookline, Massachusetts (camera obscura), Keliy Anderson-Staley from Guilford, Maine and currently in Russellville, Arkansas (wet-plate collodion), Brenton Hamilton from Rockland, Maine (gum bichromate), Tillman Crane from Camden, Maine (platinum prints), and Alan Vlach from Trenton and Portland, Maine (salted paper prints). Their work, in some cases modified through the digital process, will be on view at the Museum in conjunction with a major exhibition of Homer’s late paintings, Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine, on view September 22 through December 30, 2012, also executed at Prouts Neck.

As a means of documenting the restoration of the Museum’s historic McLellan House in 2002, a series of small exhibitions called Open House also highlighted the work of contemporary photographers. A decade later, The Homer Studio Photographic Project affords a similar opportunity to provide the public with images that interpret as well as record, the significance of another, even more historic, museum property. Because of the remote and private location of the Homer Studio, the current exhibition provides Museum visitors with another means to access its spectacular coastal site and intimate working spaces. As contemporary artists, the photographers included in this exhibition have assimilated the impact of Homer’s world on their own and used the specific features of historic photographic processes to convey the connections between past and present.

The Museum showcases two Circa exhibitions per year featuring the work of living artists from Maine any beyond, in both group and solo formats. Between Past and Present: The Homer Studio Photographic Project is curated by Senior Curator Susan Danly.

Circa is a series of exhibitions featuring the work of living artists from Maine and beyond. Circa is made possible by S. Donald Sussman. Corporate support is provided by The VIA Agency.

(Image credit: Alan Vlach, The South Window, 2012, salted paper (gold toned), 14 x 9 1/3 inches. ©Alan Vlach)

MUSEUM INFORMATION
The Portland Museum of Art, Maine’s largest art museum, showcases fine and decorative arts from the 18th century to the present. From Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth to Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet, the Museum features three centuries of art and architecture. The Museum is located at Seven Congress Square in downtown Portland. Hours are: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday. Memorial Day through Columbus Day, the Museum is open on Mondays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Museum admission is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and students with I.D., $6 for youth ages 13 to 17, and children 12 and under are free. The Museum is free on Friday evenings from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., made possible through the generous support of L.L.Bean. No admission is required to visit the PMA Café and Store. For more information, call (207) 775-6148 or visit portlandmuseum.org.