An Intimate Look at Leon Kroll’s 1916 Painting “Building the Ship, Camden, Maine” with Eric Baumgartner

An Intimate Look at Leon Kroll’s 1916 Painting Building the Ship, Camden, Maine

Don’t miss this last chance to view Leon Kroll’s 1916 painting Building the Ship, Camden, Maine up close on Tuesday, August 12, at 6:00 p.m. before it leaves the library!

Eric Baumgartner, Senior Vice President of Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, will tell the story of Kroll and Bellows in Camden and the ship they painted. This event is open to the public.

In June 1916, Leon Kroll was painting in the New York’s Catskill Mountains when he received a letter from his friend, the Ashcan artist Robert Henri. Henri wrote that their mutual friend, George Bellows, was in Camden, “lonely and in a rut.” “Why don’t you go and paint near George?,” Henri urged. He’d like you to, very much.” Kroll packed up his car, drove to Maine, and rented a house in Camden next door to the Bellows family.

Camden proved productive for both artists. This was the eve of America’s entry into World War I, and shipyards up and down the Maine coast were constructing wooden freight ships for use in moving materiel overseas. Inspired by the spectacle of a massive wooden ship under construction in Camden, Kroll painted Building the Ship. Bellows admired the work. “That’s a beautiful motif. Do you mind if I paint the same motif?” The result was Bellows’ powerful series of paintings that included The Teamster (Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine); The Rope or Builders of Ships (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven); The Skeleton (Wichita Museum of Art, Kansas); and Shipyard Society (private collection).