Maud Briggs Knowlton (1870–1956), Spruce Grove, Monhegan, 1940. Oil on canvasboard, 9½ x 13 inches. 
Collection of Carol A. and Robert L. Stahl.





Edward Knowlton, Maud Briggs Knowlton, circa 1897. Gelatin silver print. Monhegan Museum of Art & History. 

Through September 30, 2019 


Monhegan Museum of Art & History  


1 Lighthouse Hill, Monhegan Island, Maine  

 

For more information, call 207.596.7003   
or visit www.monheganmuseum.org  


This summer the Monhegan Museum of Art & History will celebrate the art and life of Maud Briggs Knowlton (1870–1956), one of the first women to direct a major American art museum and one of the few women to paint on Monhegan Island. A Life Made in Art: Maud Briggs Knowlton is the first major retrospective of Knowlton’s work and will include more than 40 watercolors, oils, etchings, drawings, and painted porcelain from Knowlton’s time on Monhegan Island and in New Hampshire. Accompanying the exhibition will be displays of turn-of-the-century photographs, cyanotypes, and glass-plate negatives by Knowlton’s husband, Edward, that capture life as it existed on Monhegan Island when they first arrived on its shores in the 1890s.




Edward Knowlton, Working Waterfront, Splitting Table, Fish Beach, ca. 1900. Glass-plate negative. Monhegan Museum of Art & History; Gift of Leo and Bernice Meissner. 

Knowlton started her artistic career as a china painter, and by 1895, began to exhibit in prominent regional venues such as the Boston Art Club and became a member of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. By 1900 Knowlton began to expand her reputation in the field of china decoration to a national level and became a founding instructor at the Institute of Arts and Sciences in Manchester, New Hampshire. Rising to become a cultural leader of that community, in 1929 she was named the first director of the Currier Museum of Art.


On Monhegan, Knowlton was captivated by the rustic architecture and cottage flower gardens. She came to know many other artists attracted by the island’s rich diversity, including George Bellows, Andrew Winter, Jay Hall Connaway, Leo Meissner, and Frederick J. Waugh. Knowlton included many of these artists in group exhibitions at the Currier, and in 1939, organized the first museum exhibition of watercolors by the then-21-year-old Andrew Wyeth just as his career was taking off.


A Life Made in Art is co-organized by the Monhegan Museum of Art & History and the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire, where it will be on view after Monhegan from February 15 through May 10, 2020. A 92-page catalogue is available at the Monhegan Museum Store for $25.



This article was originally published in the Autumn 2019 issue of Antiques & Fine Art magazine, a fully digitized version of which is available at www.afamag.com. AFA is affiliated with Incollect.com.