On Tuesday, July 19th 2022, some potent historical tendrils of the Ogunquit Art Colony connected with the present day activities of the Ogunquit Art Association (OAA) as Barn Gallery hosted an exciting off-site “Watercolor Workshop Still-Life: Simple Values & Shadows” led by OAA artist-member Russel Whitten at Robert Laurent’s farm studio in Cape Neddick.
Russel Whitten is a local artist/teacher, studied at The Art Students League of New York, Heartwood College of Art, and is a juried artist-member of The OAA, Maine’s Original Artists’ Group.
This plein air painting class provided training in the direct observation of form and its surrounding elements with a special focus on the culturally significant home (and winter studio) of Robert & Mimi Laurent. Emphasis was placed on building perspective and afternoon shadows; as well as on plein air drawing and controlling watercolor media while re-creating the appearance of nature with use of surrounding forms.
Demonstrating with watercolor, Russel demonstrated the development of forms as derived from the study of perspective, composition, value and color.
Click any image below for a larger view
Ogunquit Art Association History: About Robert Laurent
Robert Laurent and Bernard Karfiol with class at the Ogunquit School of Painting and Sculpture, Ogunquit, Maine photograph / (photographed by Peter A. Juley & Son)
Robert Laurent was juried into the Ogunquit Art Association (OAA) in 1949. The OAA – Maine’s original artists’ group (established in 1928) – is still going strong at Barn Gallery.
Laurent was born the son of French peasants in Concarneau, Brittany, France in 1890. His skill in art was recognized by the Brooklyn Eagle art critic, painter and collector Hamilton Easter Field who mentored him, taught him to paint and served as Laurent’s surrogate father for the rest of his life.
In 1908, Field took Laurent to Rome, where he trained with Maurice Sterne and wood carver Giuseppe Doratori, before formally studying at the British Academy. Upon graduation, Laurent moved permanently to the U.S. at age twenty, only to quickly return to Europe as a member of the navy during the First World War. In Europe, Laurent traveled to his native Brittany where he met Mimi Caraes, who became his wife.
In the summer of 1902, Field and 12-year-old Laurent traveled to Ogunquit, Maine, a popular destination for artists, who were drawn by the landscape. During their stay, Field “bought a row of shacks that he started renting out cheap to artists.”
In 1911, Field and Laurent built a studio there and co-founded the Ogunquit Summer School of Graphic Arts. Field taught drawing and painting until his death, and Laurent taught sculpture and wood carving there for the next 50 years.
There was, however, another art school in Ogunquit. Founded by Field’s former teacher (and one of the future founders of the Ogunquit Art Association), Charles Woodbury’s Ogunquit Summer School of Drawing and Painting was heavily influenced by the “regional impressionist” style of painting also known as the Boston School.
Field and Laurent were, conversely, committed modernists, and appealed to more experimental students and colleagues, such as Marsden Hartley, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Niles Spencer, gallery owner Edith Gregor Halpert and curator Holger Cahill, among others.
Together, the two schools transformed a town of fewer than 1,000 into Maine’s largest art colony
Field died in 1922, leaving Laurent his Brooklyn home, the Ogunquit school they had co-founded and an art collection, which Laurent later used to establish as the Hamilton Easter Field Foundation with the help of other New York artists.
Laurent’s work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Musem of Art.
Didn’t make it to this Barn Gallery Demonstration?
Not to worry! There’s still plenty to do and see at Barn Gallery this summer! We hope to see even more of the art-lovers in (and around) Ogunquit, Maine at some of our upcoming events!
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Photos by Deidre O’Flaherty.
