Leo Brooks (1910-1993) began painting at the age of 62.  He sold his first painting at Monhegan's Trailing Yew Hotel where he had been vacationing and painting energetic watercolors for several years.  Later paintings were purchased by the Farnsworth and Portland Museums of Art.

Brooks was not a naïf painter, though his fresh watercolors have a bounding energy and uncorrected directness, as seen here in his modernist painting of Blackhead, Monhegan.  He studied with Mario Cooper at the Art Students League and with Edgar Whitney after retiring from the New York Times.  To show his work widely he joined various organizations: The Maramoneck Artists' Guild, the Salmagundi Club in Manhattan, the Hudson River Contemporary Arts Club in Yonkers, etc.

Bernard Corey (1914-2000) is nationally recognized as one of the finest plein air landscape painters active in New England during the twentieth century.  Corey painted on location all over the Northeast alongside other great New England masters who were his friends including Lester Stevens, Emile Gruppe, and many others.

This painting is an impressionistic study of a high summer meadow landscape identified as being near Woodstock, CT.  Corey always painted what nature presented to him on a given day.  This looks to have been a rather turbulent windy day.  The brushwork and mood are somewhat more dynamic and the overall effect more distinctly impressionistic than the usual calm found in Corey's more realist landscapes.

Richard G. Packer (1916-1998) was the owner of a well-patronized art gallery in the center of the Mt. Washington Valley in North Conway, NH.  Mr. Packer recieved his degree from the Mass. College of Art in 1938 and taught many students at his studios in Marblehead, MA.  His New England sea and landscapes hang in every state in the union.

Every winter Mr. and Mrs. Packer traveled extensively in Europe and the U.S., in order to see again and record the pulse of life.  Each year the gallery was full of newly-painted art works in a variety of subject matters.  We are showing a large oil (24x36 inches) on canvas of Back Cove, New Harbor, Maine.

Robert Hagberg's seascape entitled The Rugged and Serene was selected this year in the Top 100 Artists for the National Parks Academy of the Arts, marking the 3rd time in a row that he has received this honor.  In 1998, after many years of professional acrylic painting, Robert shifted to oils and received the Award for Excellence from Oil Painters of America.

In this medium his style has evolved from photo-realism to the more painterly, yet still realistic vision we see here in Long Pond.

Dennis Sheehan, born in Boston in 1950, is a member of the Guild of Boston Artists, and currently lives and works in the New Hampshire countryside.  His work is in major public and private collections, including the White House.  Sheehan paints in the Barbizon mode with remarkable authority and faithful adherence to his 19th century precursors.

In the tradition of the Tonalist painters, Sheehan creates landscapes of mood, affected by nature's changing seasons as seen here in his Moonrise over the Marsh.  "My goal is to have the painting emanate light, rather than be just a surface that records the reflections of light.  This is why the shadow areas are important, for it is from them that this emanation proceeds.  The light areas are focal points of this effort, but the power comes from the shadows."

Brad Betts paints a variety of landscape scenes from Maine seascapes, farm life, fishing and sailing, to historical maritime scenes as well as floral still life.  Brad has been an artist for over 15 years and received his education from the University of Maine in Orono.

He comes from a long line of artists that includes his father and grandparents. He has studied with Carolyn Blish and Don Demers and is a member of ASMA, the American Society of Marine Artists.  Included in this show is an early autumn scene of a Maine saltwater farm, titled Merrill Farm.

The BLUE HILL BAY GALLERY, located on Main St/Tenney Hill in Blue Hill, is Friday thru Sunday from 10-5.  This special exhibit will be shown until mid-October with an opening reception on Sunday, September 5th from 5 to 7pm.