To that end, he set out to paint the state, coast and mountains, lakes and streams, working from a home base in Franklin, northeast of Ellsworth. “ reduction of forms to suggestions of elements creates a new shorthand which plays against vibrant color,” wrote Isaacson, who noted that the resulting work, had “a feeling of rightness.” Both Beem and Isaacson pointed out Barter’s aesthetic kinship to the American modernists, in particular to his hero, Marsden Hartley, as well as to Arthur Dove and Georgia O’Keeffe.īorn in Boothbay and largely self-taught, Barter had decided early on that he wanted to emulate Hartley and become the “artist laureate” of Maine. Unhappy at being labeled as a folk artist, Barter was moving toward more abstracted renderings of the Maine landscape.Ĭritics such as Maine Times writer Edgar Allen Beem and the Maine Sunday Telegram’s Philip Isaacson recognized the change. Up until the late 1980s, his reputation as an artist had been tied to his narrative paintings: charming, boisterous, dynamic images of local life such as boatyards, local watering holes, firemen putting out a blaze. His work was winging off the walls of prestigious galleries up and down the coast.īarter was also in the middle of a major transition. When the Bates College Museum of Art mounted a retrospective of Philip Barter’s work in 1992, the painter, then 53 years old, was on a major roll with regard to his reputation among aficionados of Maine art. Philip Barter strikes a thoughtful pose in his studio.
All photos of the artwork by Priscilla Barter
Barter’s early images captured scenes of Mainers at work, such as this colorful and busy portrayal from the 1990s of Steuben’s working waterfront, titled West Brothers Lobster Co., oil on canvas, 36" x 48".
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