Provenance:

Collection of Mr. James Murphy.

Acquired from the above.

Lot Note:

With its rocky shoreline and uneven, seemingly untamed terrain, Maine drew artists such as Edward Redfield, who began summering in Boothbay Harbor in 1903 and later bought a house on Monhegan Island. Maine became Folinsbee's primary focus in the 1950s, after he purchased Murphy's Corner, an old farmhouse near Woolwich overlooking Montsweag Bay. Although he lacked Redfield's physical agility, he captured the raw beauty of the coast with vivid, dynamic brushwork, working either from land or at sea. The latter became possible once he bought a lobster boat, Sketch, which allowed him to approach the water with less difficulty and to record its transient nature from different perspectives.

The present landscape offers a bird's-eye view of the open sea, most likely off Seguin Island, where a salmon weir extends diagonally between the shore and a small island at the center of the composition. In smooth, fluid strokes of dark green, blue, and white, Folinsbee suggests the strong wind that sweeps the region and drives the water against the shore, giving the picture a theatrical energy. As Kristen Jensen notes, "Folinsbee saw in the water what Homer, George Bellows, Robert Henri, and countless others saw—a challenge to transfer onto the still canvas the essence of movement, of something undergoing constant transformation not only volumetrically, but also tonally and in the way the light reflects off its ever-changing surface."

Framed: 39 3/4 x 55 3/4 x 1 3/4 in.

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