Lynn, MA
781-592-2465
The Lynn Beach Painters: Art Along the North Shore, 1880-1920
The
Lynn Museum, formally the Lynn Historical Society, 125 Green Street, Lynn,
Massachusetts is presenting 52 paintings in an exhibition, The Lynn Beach
Painters: Art Along the North Shore 1880-1920. The exhibition opened
to the public on November 24, 1998 and ends April 16,1999. It next travels
to Heritage Plantation, Sandwich, MA where it will be on view from May 17,
1999 to mid October 1999. 
The picturesque coast of Boston's North Shore, from Revere
to Marblehead, was home to a remarkable school of American Marine Impressionists.
The Lynn Beach Painters flourished as a group during the last two decades
of the nineteenth century, a period which saw not only the rise of European
influences, but also great growth in American art in its own right. 
As early as the 1850s major international artists such
as William Bradford and his teacher, Albert Van Beest, had been drawn to
the shoreline, marshes, and fish shacks of the Lynn, Swampscott and Nahant
beaches. 
The ensuing decades saw the area emerge as both a major
resort community and an industrial center with a high concentration of wealthy
art patrons. At the same time, the widespread appreciation of art and art
education was evident in the passage of the Mandatory Drawing Act of 1870,
which made artistic training available to every citizen of Massachusetts.
The Lynn Evening Drawing School, founded as a result, was a key factor in
the development of the distinctive school of painting that briefly thrived
along the North Shore. 
From 1882 to the 1890s seven significant American artists
shared a similar technique and interest in the wide beaches, tidal marshes,
and working fisherfolk of the Lynn and Swampscott beaches and developed
a particular style of regional Impressionism. The seven -- Nathaniel L.
Berry, Edward Burrill, William Partridge Burpee, C.E. L. Green, T. Clark
Oliver, Edward A. Page and Charles H. Woodbury -- form the group now known
as the Lynn Beach Painters. 
In the accompanying publication, The Lynn Beach Painters: Art Along the North Shore 1880-1920., ISBN 1-882162-13-7, art historian D. Roger Howlett and Lynn Museum Director Kenneth C. Turino and Curator Heather Johnson for the first time recognize the group for both its cohesiveness and its significance. The authors place the school in the context of the period in American art, so strongly influenced by both French Impressionism and plein-air painting as well as the modern Dutch school. Through careful research and lavish illustration the authors restore this sometimes overlooked group to their rightful place in American art history.
From top to bottom: T. C. Oliver, Ship in Full Sail, collection
of the Lynn Historical Society; E. Page, Dory on the Beach, collection
of Swampscott Library; Charles Woodbury, Egg Rock from Nahant, 1880;
C. E. L. Green, Derelict on the Beach; E. Burrill, Pathway with
Barn; cover of The Lynn Beach Painters: Art Along the North Shore
1880-1920. Please click on images to enlarge them.
For further biographical information on selected artists cited in this article please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
rev. 8/24/10
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