Harrison Bird Brown

Harrison Bird Brown painted the coast and mountains of New England: rocky shores and bays in Maine, ships at sea, and the peaks and passes of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, in a clear, detailed style.

Born in Portland, Maine, in 1831, he was encouraged by the critic and writer John Neal and became Portland’s most successful artist of the 19th century. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design from 1858 to 1875 and helped establish the Portland Society of Art, serving as one of its early presidents. His two paintings of Crawford Notch (1890) are among his best known. In 1892 he moved to London to live with his daughter, and he died there in 1915. His work is in the Portland Museum of Art and the Colby and Bowdoin college museums.

Frenchmans Bay, Mount Desert shows the Maine coast he knew best.