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Fitz Henry Lane
HISTORICAL ARCHIVE • CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ • EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE
An online project under the direction of the CAPE ANN MUSEUM
An online project under the direction of the CAPE ANN MUSEUM
Catalog entry
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inv. 47
Owl's Head, Penobscot Bay, Maine
1862 Oil on canvas 15 3/4 x 26 1/8 in. (40 x 66.4 cm) Inscribed and dated verso (prior to relining): Owl's Head – Penobscot Bay, by F.H. Lane, 1862
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Related Work in the Catalog
Provenance (Information known to date; research ongoing.)
Mrs. John LeFavour Stanley, Gloucester, Mass.
Mrs. Louise S. Campbell, Montclair, N.J., by 1938
Charles D. Childs, Boston, 1943
Maxim Karolik, Newport, R.I., 1943
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1948
Exhibition History
M. Knoedler & Co., New York, New York, Commemorative Exhibition of Karolik Private Collection Paintings by Martin J. Heade and Fitz Hugh Lane, May 3–28, 1954., no. 8.
University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, American Painting, 1857–1869, January 10–February 18, 1962.
Monmouth Museum, Red Bank, New Jersey, The Spell of the Sea, May 2–31, 1965.
DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, Fitz Hugh Lane: The First Major Exhibition, March 20–April 17, 1966., no. 50.
Traveled to: Colby College Art Museum, Waterville, Maine, 30–6, 1966.
Traveled to: Colby College Art Museum, Waterville, Maine, 30–6, 1966.
Brockton Art Center, Brockton, Massachusetts, New England Art from New England Museum, January–March 1969.
Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, Indiana, The American Scene, January 18–February 28, 1970.
John Wilmerding, William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, Rockland, Maine, Fitz Hugh Lane 1804-1805, July 12–September 15, 1974., no. 45, ill.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, The Natural Paradise: Painting in America 1800–1950, October 1–November 30, 1976.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia, American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850–1875, February 10–June 15, 1980.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760–1910, September 7–November 13, 1983.
Traveled to: Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 6, 1983–12, 1984; Grand Palais, Paris, France, 16–11, 1984.
Traveled to: Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 6, 1983–12, 1984; Grand Palais, Paris, France, 16–11, 1984.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, The Great Boston Collectors: Paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts, February 13–June 2, 1985.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia, Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, May 15–September 5, 1988., no. 52, ill. in color, p. 119.
Traveled to: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., 5–31, 1988.
Traveled to: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., 5–31, 1988.
Cape Ann Historical Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts, The Mysteries of Fitz Henry Lane, July 7–September 16, 2007., no. 39, ill., p. 92.
Traveled to: Spanierman Gallery, New York, N.Y., 4–1, 2007.
Traveled to: Spanierman Gallery, New York, N.Y., 4–1, 2007.
Published References
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815 to 1865. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; published for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1949.
Baur, John I.H. Commemorative Exhibition: Paintings by Martin Johnson Heade and Fitz Hugh Lane from the Karolik Collections in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. New York: M. Knoedler & Co., 1954. (exhibition brochure)., no. 8, ill. ⇒ includes 
text
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McLanathan, Richard. Fitz Hugh Lane (Museum of Fine Arts Picture Book Number Eight). Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1956; 1972 second ed., p. 6. ⇒ includes text
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Eliot, Alexander. Three Hundred Years of American Painting. New York: Time Inc., 1957.
American Paintings 1815–1865: One Hundred and Fifty Paintings from the M. and M. Karolik Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1957.
Craven, Wayne. American Painting, 1857–1869. Newark, DE: University of Deleware, 1962.
Flexner, James Thomas. That Wilder Image: The Painting of America's Native School from Thomas Cole to Winslow Homer. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1962.
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Hugh Lane, 1804–1865: American Marine Painter. Salem, MA: The Essex Institute, 1964.
The American Neptune, Pictorial Supplement VII: A Selection of Marine Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, 1804–1865. Salem, MA: The American Neptune, 1965., plate XXVIII, no. 110. ⇒ includes text
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Wilmerding, John. Fitz Hugh Lane: The First Major Exhibition. Lincoln, MA: De Cordova Museum; in association with Colby College Art Museum, 1966., no. 50, ill. ⇒ includes text
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Wilmerding, John. "Fitz Hugh Lane's Paintings Down East." Down East (April 1966)., p. 24. ⇒ includes text
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McLanathan, Richard. The American Tradition in the Arts. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968.
Wilmerding, John. A History of American Marine Painting. Salem, MA: Peabody Museum; in association with Little, Brown and Co., 1968.
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Hugh Lane. New York: Praeger, 1971.
Williams, Herman Ward. The Britanica Encyclopedia of American Art. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corp., 1973.
Fitz Hugh Lane 1804-1865. Rockland, ME: William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, 1974., no. 45, ill.
McShine, Kynaston. The Natural Paradise: Painting in America 1800–1950. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1976.
Harris, William H., and Judith S. Levey. The New Illustrated Columbia Encyclopedia. Garden City, NY: Rockville House Publishers, 1978.
Siegel, Linda. Caspar David Friedrich and the Age of German Romanticism. Boston: Branden Press, 1978.
Wilmerding, John, ed. American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850–1875. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1980., fig. 113, p. 110, text, pp. 111, 211.
Novak, Barbara. Nature and Culture: American Landscape Painting, 1825–1875. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Wilmerding, John. "American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850–1875; An Exhibition at the National Gallery of Art." Antiques 117 (April 1980).
Knight, Christopher. "Is There a California School?" Portfolio: The Magazine of the Visual Arts 3 (September/October 1981).
Stebbins, Theodore, Carol Troyen, and Trevor J. Fairbrother. A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760–1910. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1983.
Baigell, Matthew. A Concise History of American Painting and Sculpture. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1984.
Troyen, Carol, and Pamela S. Tabbaa. The Great Boston Collectors: Paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1984.
Fazio, Beverly. Masterpiece Paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1986.
Wilmerding, John. American Marine Painting. 2nd ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987.
Wilmerding, John. Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1988., no. 52, fig. 31, p.151.
Moses, Michael A. "Mary B. Mellen and Fitz Hugh Lane." Antiques Magazine Vol. CXL, No. 5 (November 1991)., pp. 829, 833. ⇒ includes text
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Shain, Charles, and Samuella Shain. The Maine Reader: The Down East Experience from 1614 to the Present. Boston: David R. Godine, 1991.
Training the Eye and the Hand: Fitz Hugh Lane and 19th Century Drawing Books. Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Historical Association, 1993., fig. 21, p. 22.
Davis, Elliot Bostwick. "American Drawing Books and Their Impact on Fitz Hugh Lane." Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 105, part 1 (1995)., fig. 3, p. 90, text, p. 88. ⇒ includes text
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Novak, Barbara. Nature and Culture: American Landscape Painting, 1825–1875. Revised edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995., no. 95, p. 186, Owl's Head, Penobscot Bay, Maine.
Wilton, Andrew, and Tim Barringer. American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States, 1820–1880. London: Tate Publishing, 2002., cat. 71, ill. in color, p. 198, text, pp. 198, 254, 270.
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Henry Lane. Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Historical Association, 2005. Reprint of Fitz Hugh Lane, by John Wilmerding. New York: Praeger, 1971. Includes new information regarding the artist's name., ill. 41, text, pp. 55-56.
Bohlin, Virginia. "'Owl's Head' Back from the Missing." The Boston Globe, February 19, 2006.
Keck, Michaela. Walking in the Wilderness: The Peripatetic Tradition in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Painting. Heidelberg, Germany: Universitatsverlag Winter, 2006., fig. 30, p. 256; text, pp. 255–56.
Wilmerding, John. "Fitz Henry Lane & Mary Blood Mellen." American Art Review 19, no. 4 (2007)., pp. 170, 175.
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Henry Lane & Mary Blood Mellen: Old Mysteries and New Discoveries. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2007., no. 39, fig. 28, text, pp. 35, 92. ⇒ includes text
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Unbroken Thread: Nature Paintings and the American Imagination; The Art of Philip Koch. Adelphi, MD: University of Maryland University College, 2008.
H. Travers Newton, Jr. "Fitz Henry Lane's Series Paintings of 'Brace's Rock': Meaning and Technique." Terra Foundation for American Art. Unpublished report., Owl's Head, Penobscot Bay, Maine. ⇒ includes text
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Commentary
Owl's Head, Penobscot Bay, Maine is probably Lane's best-known work. He greatly simplified a popular artistic motif—the idyllic harbor view—in virtually every detail. The viewer looks out onto a contemporary coastal town with its commercial traffic, but sees few props in the foreground and background that would preoccupy one with thoughts of daily affairs. Instead there is a single boatman gazing at a seemingly unpopulated bay. Lane recorded the distinctive profile of Owl's Head with its tiny lighthouse clearly silhouetted against the evening sky.
Geometric clarity and simplicity set Lane's work apart from landscape scenes of the previous century. In Owl's Head, Penobscot Bay, Maine nature is a presence that envelops and transfixes the solitary boatman, but the picture that presents this vision retains the modest format and a bit of the decorative appeal of an earlier era.
– Text has been adapted from Theodore Stebbins, Carol Troyen, and Trevor J. Fairbrother, A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760–1910 (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1983).