Portland Museum is Maine's Fine Arts Gem

For nearly a century, the Portland Museum of Art has been the center of the fine arts scene in Maine. But, beginning with gifts of both paintings and building funds from a prominent Maine native in 1976, the museum has evolved into one of the most highly-praised small city museums in the country.

Charles Shipman Payson's gift of 17 paintings by Winslow Homer, along with $8 million for an addition to the existing museum, jump-started a remarkable outpouring of philanthropy that dramatically increased the volume and importance of the institution's collection. The money was used to construct a gallery designed by Henry Nichols Cobb of the renowned architectural firm of I.M. Pei & Partners - whose namesake conceived the glass pyramid visitors' entrance at the Louvre in Paris. It gave the museum a striking façade at the center of Portland's downtown, and an immediate increase in visibility and interest.

A quarter-century later, the estate of Payson's wife - the heiress Joan Whitney Payson, owner of the New York Mets baseball team - donated 20 impressionist and post-impressionist paintings to the museum. The collection now includes works by Monet, Degas, Renoir and Cassatt. One work that was owned by Joan Whitney Payson was not donated to the museum. Instead, Van Gogh's "Irises" was sold for $49 million - at the time form the highest price ever paid for a painting - and now hangs in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

But the Payson's generosity inspired others as well. In 1996, Maine art collector Elizabeth Noyce left a diverse collection of 66 paintings to the Portland Museum of Art, once again significantly expanding its holdings.

Today, the museum's 17,000-piece collection is highlighted by art with significance to the state of Maine. Three generation of Wyeths are represented - the illustrator N. C Wyeth, his son Andrew Wyeth, and grandson Jamie Wyeth all have works on display. Other artists with ties to the state, including landscapes by Frederic Edwin Church and Fitz Hugh Lane and contemporary works by Louise Nevelson, are featured as well.

But it is Homer that, in many ways, is the centerpiece of the museum's collection. He worked for years in a studio on Prout's Neck, just a dozen miles or so from the museum, which prominently features some of the famous seascape oils from the latter part of his career, as well as watercolors and prints. Also on display is the watercolor box Homer used in creating many of his paintings.

The Portland Museum of Art is located in Congress Square in the center of the city, and is open daily from Memorial Day through Columbus Day and Tuesdays through Sundays in the off-season. Tours are offered daily at 2pm.