AFA Summer 2021

2021 Antiques & Fine Art 89 Instead, the experience offers deeply emotional explorations of industry and political conflict, sailor culture, visions of the undersea world and abstraction, as well as legacies of the Middle Passage and immigrants’ points of entry. Even before marine art was produced in America, seascape paintings were included among items imported from Europe to decorate American homes in the latest style. Later, artists developed a distinctively American vision of the sea with an independent artistic identity. Today the sea is on the minds of Americans, in part, because of sea-level rise and the impact of associated climate events on coastal communities and beyond. More than 90 percent of the world’s commerce travels by sea and it is no coincidence that most major American cities are situated on waterways—whether around protected coastal harbors or inland at the confluence of major rivers. No matter where we live, the sea shapes all of our lives and continues to inspire some of the most exciting artists working today. Founded in 1799 by the East India Marine Society in Salem, Massachusetts, PEM developed one of the nation’s first and foremost maritime collections. Situated on one of New England’s most historic harbors, the museum has long stewarded and celebrated the interplay of maritime history and global interconnectivity. Exhibition co-organizer, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, was founded in 2011 in the Ozarks. The region surrounding Bentonville, Arkansas, is known for its abundant waterways in the form of springs, creeks, lakes and rivers, most notably the White River that originates from the Boston Mountains of Northwest Arkansas and ultimately feeds into the mighty Mississippi River, which flows to the Gulf of Mexico. In American Waters is organized by the Peabody Essex Museum and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The exhibition is accompanied by the catalogue In American Waters: The Sea in American Painting, edited by Daniel Finamore, PEM’s Associate Director—Exhibitions and The Russell W. Knight Curator of Maritime Art and History, and Austen Barron Bailly, Chief Curator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The exhibition will be on view at the Peabody Essex Museum ( pem.org ) from May 29 through October 3, 2021 and travel to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (crystalbridges.org ), where it will be on view November 6, 2021 through January 31, 2022.  Austen Barron Bailly is Chief Curator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. At the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., are Sarah Chasse, Associate Curator for Exhibitions and Research, Daniel Finamore, Associate Director—Exhibitions and The Russell W. Knight Curator of Maritime Art and History, and George Schwartz, Associate Curator for Exhibitions and Research. Felrath Hines (1913–1993), Untitled, 1967–73. Oil on canvas, 27 × 71 inches. Peabody Essex Museum; Gift of Dorothy Fisher, widow of the artist (2014.59.2). CONTINUED FROM PAGE 80 Hines was inspired by the beaches of Chincoteague, Virginia, to present a mirage-like oceanic and atmospheric bands in pure horizontality. This work emphasizes his interest in the planar and abstract properties of light and water. Layered above two blue-gray horizontal stripes are bands of varying thickness and colors evocative of a beach’s shallow water with sandy surfaces below—ocher, brown, beige, and pale green. The wide planes of color also direct the eye toward the stark horizon at the top of the painting: a weighty strip of leaden sky edging down against the gray ocean.