Our chairs were so close together that my elbows were touching the people on either side of me. Gathered for a lecture, 976 people seemed a little absurd, even for the spunky city of Portland.
Because of the number of people in attendance, the Portland Museum of Art could not host their own event, and turned to the Holiday Inn by The Bay for the biggest ballroom in town.
As Adam Gopnik took the podium, the boom of applause for the The New Yorker’s art critic could have rivaled the results of a touchdown. His twenty years at The New Yorker are only a part of his career: he began writing the international bestseller “Paris to the Moon” in 1994, and collaborated in curating “High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture,” a renowned show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1990.
The title of his lecture, “Winslow Homer and the American Imagination,” corresponds to his own expertise-he’s been writing a history of American art for 20 years, to be finished this year-as well as the pride of the Portland Museum of Art, whose collection consists of 14 of Homer’s watercolors and oil paintings including his first, and 90 percent of his early graphic works which chronicle his early life as a commercial illustrator.
Gifts left to the PMA from philanthropist Bernard A. Osher, who is also responsible for the soon-expanding Osher map library at USM, enable the museum to annually invite a guest lecturer of significance and wisdom.
When Gopnik published an article last February on local artist Winslow Homer, “well, we couldn’t ask for more,” said Dana Baldwin, the Peggy L. Osher Director of Education at the PMA, “when we were dreaming about who to get for this year’s lecture, he was the first suggestion, when he said yes, we were thrilled.”
Taking the podium, the art critic dove into the history of Portland’s prize artist, claiming that he was in no way an expert, simply an admirer of Homer.
Gopnik brought the Homer from the museum’s canvases to life as a mysterious lifetime bachelor with a home on Prouts Neck whose paintings signify all that was deep within America post-Civil War.
According to Gopnik, Homer’s work is too deep for that simple classification.
After illustrating as a journalist through the Civil War, capturing scenes of battle and boredom, Homer studied in Paris. Gopnik explains his evolution there, in large part from his exposure to “Japonese”, art from Japan showing in France at the time.
In his late career, the masterpieces he produced in Maine were his most powerful images, incorporating the themes of the American feeling of Civil War times with skills he had developed in France.
“Homer is able to capture the very most, through the very least of means,” Gopnik says. He was able to capture a national innocence, domestic longing as part of the American experience with what Gopnik calls a “poetic intensity.”
“Through oddity and awkwardness he insinuates a greater theme. He’s the father, or grandfather of [Edward] Hopper.”
Hours before the lecture, museum director Daniel O’Leary had guided Gopnik through Homer’s studio and the coastal property that had inspired and housed the artist from 1883 until his death.
His home and studio at Prouts Neck has been preserved as a historical landmark, and was acquired by the museum last year.
Homer’s studio will open to the public in 2009. The artist’s windows to the sea were often the windows looking out at some of his greatest works, as well as a sanctuary of the artist’s thoughts, which are scribbled on the walls across the studio.
Gopnik pointed out his favorite: “What a friend chance can be when it chooses,” a haunting commentary on the reflection of Winslow Homer taken from a mystery novel of the era.
Beginning February 3, a video of the lecture will be shown every day at 2:30 p.m. in the lower ground floor of the museum. Admission to the museum is free for USM students.