In The Arts: Skowhegan A 10·Year Retrospective. By Hearne Pardee.

Unlit/ed, 1984 Acrylic, oil pastels on canvas, 66 x 76

This spring, museum-goers in Portland will be offered a special glimpse of one of Maine's best-known cultural centers, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Founded 40 years ago by artists Williard Cummings, Henry Varnum Poore, Charles Cutler, and Sidney Simon at the Cummings' farm on Lake Wesserunsett, the School has become a summer focus for the national, and even the international, art world, drawing a faculty of highly reputed artists and a competitively selected group of students from allover the country. The exhibition, "Skowhegan: A T en-Year Retrospective," which opens at the Portland Museum of Art, 7 Congress Square, in June, features works by artists who studied at the Skowhegan School in the summers of 1975 through 1985. Selected from submissions of over 400 works by a panel of jurists consisting of curators at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Guggenheim Museum, all in New York, the show includes 51 works and was originally mounted last fall at the Leo Castelli Gallery. .

As the history of the exhibition suggests, the Skowhegan School is fully engaged in the complexities of the art world. Surely Henry Varnum Poore, who wrote in the School's first catalogue of the need for sound drawing, painting, and craftsmanship, would be shocked by its present perilously close relationship to the "fashions or modes f)fthe moment" he had sought to avoid. Indeed, its idyllic setting in rural Maine, which Cummings and Poore saw as a link to "reality," has come for some to symbolize the School's exclusivity, its connection to the obscure powers that

Margo Sawyer, Chava, 1984 Collection of M.G. Lewis and Co.

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By Hearne Pardee

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guide contemporary art.

But the School has matured along with the American art establishment itself, which developed from provincial sincerity to phenomenal wealth and international sophistication in the past 40 years, and it 'would be foolish to idealize that earlier, simpler world. If now even at Skowhegan one has to struggle to get beneath the hype and careerism, the School is only the more important for the opportunity it still provides for sustained, supportive personal contacts between older professionals and gifted students on the verge of . careers. Indeed, Skowhegan's idyllic setting still serves as an image of that ideal learning, which goes back at least to the Renaissance, and its offer of a triciI period - an initiatory self-confrontation - still seems basic to genuine creative achievement. '

That the School has survived the pressures of its transformation is due in large part to another of its founding principles, that it remain a school run by and for artists. If anything can cut thr<,>Ughthe allure of superficial trends, it is personal contact with practicing artists and the discovery that it is through such shared commitments, rather than through the machinations of an obscure elite, that art acquires and sustains its vitality.

Some such understanding of the School's purpose helps the viewer negotiate the wide-ranging styles and media included in the Retrospective. While the choice reflects the current curatorial tastes of its jurors, the show must also be seen as representative of the School and its aspirations. Henry Varnum Poore's insistence on sound drawing and painting now seems subsumed in the third, more general notion of craftsmanship, as artists move beyond traditional approaches and often explore inventively new materials and techniques. One wonders if there isn't some vestige of the School's original conser· vatism in the preponderance of figurative works. But it's best to approach the

Mary Annstrong, Solitary Tree, 1984 Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Koplewicz.

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That was the year the Ranger, built by Bath Iron Works for Harold S. Vanderbilt, defeated the British challenger,Endeavor II, in four straight races.

Just four years later, in 1941, the Ranger went on to fight a greater battle in our country's defense. The racing sloop was scrapped and the 110 I ~ , tons of lead in her keel became a val- 1/1 (./ uable. part of the raw material of the j~~7.Amencan war effort.

It's all part of Maine's great • maritime heritage. And we at Bath Iron Works are proud to share many of its finest moments.

A model of the Ranger is on display in the Bath Iron Works Exhibit at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath.

_______________________ ~_ " (!) BATH IRON WORKS CORPORATION

Bath, Maine 04530

Dan Rice, Satan Sanitation, 1985 Collection of M.G. Lewis and Co.

show in the spirit of the School itself, not in terms of final products or definitive statements, but as images of art's power . to transform ourselves and our image of the world.

I. nterestingly, the Skowhegan experience has encouraged some artists to form a continuing link to Maine: Jack Hanley lives in Texas but summers in Newport, and Boston painter Mary A. Armstrong summers in Georgetown. Armstrong's images of trees reflect the psychological intensity of the selftransformation that Skowhegan embodies. for many of its students. Celeste Roberge, on the other hand, lives in Maine, and her work involves a combination of conceptual sophistication with frank acceptance of simple materials, metal and stone.

Others, such as Margo Sawyer, have seen their careers take them to more remote centers for intensive artistic development - she is currently in residence at the American Academy in Rome. But for many - 23 of the 51 artists in the show - the path to continued artistic exploration leads to New York, as it did for Dan Rice - although in his case with a personal perspective only those who approach New York from the outside can enjoy.

At the show's opening in New York, it was interesting to see the number of former Skowhegan students who attended, eager to gain for themselves some sense of the School's direction during the past decade, some new perspective on the experience itself. For the average museum-goer, the Retrospective promises a lively introduction to the contemporary art scene as well as a special insight into a crucial phase of artistic development, one not always evident in exhibitions by more mature artists. And this insight into the process by which our culture forms its most gifted students for a life of creativity offers a chance to reflect on our complex society and its ideals.

Celeste Roberge, Geographies, 1984 Collection of M.G. Lewis and Co.