Location | Southern Island, Tenants Harbor, Maine, United States |
---|---|
Coordinates | 43°57′40″N69°11′5.4″W / 43.96111°N 69.184833°W |
Tower | |
Constructed | 1857 |
Foundation | Stone |
Construction | Brick |
Height | 27 feet (8.2 m) |
Shape | Cylindrical tower, with attached dwelling |
Markings | White with black lantern |
Heritage | National Register of Historic Places listed place |
Fog signal | Bell in square pyramidal tower Current tower is a replica |
Light | |
Deactivated | 1933 |
Focal height | 66 feet (20 m) |
Lens | 4th order Fresnel lens, then 5th order |
Range | 13 nautical miles (24 km; 15 mi) |
Tenants Harbor Light Station | |
Nearest city | Tenants Harbor, Maine |
Area | 20 acres (8.1 ha) |
Architect | US Army Corps of Engineers |
Architectural style | Cape Cod style keeper's residence |
MPS | Light Stations of Maine MPS |
NRHP reference No. | 87002026 [1] |
Added to NRHP | November 20, 1987 |
Tenants Harbor Light, also known as Southern Island Light, [2] is a lighthouse at the mouth of Tenants Harbor, St. George, Maine, United States. [3] [2] It appears in paintings by Andrew Wyeth and his son Jamie Wyeth, who have owned the lighthouse since 1978.
It was established in 1857 on Southern Island, on the south side of the entrance to the harbor. It is on the west side of Two Bush Channel, the southwestern entrance to Penobscot Bay.
The light was 66 feet (20 m) above the high-water mark. By the 1900s a fifth-order Fresnel lens replaced the original fourth-order (larger) lens.
The 1½-story, wood-framed, colonial cape lighthouse keeper's residence was constructed in 1857. A brick-covered passageway connects the tower and the keeper's quarters. Other buildings include a storage building (1895), an oil house (1906), a boathouse, and a hand-operated fog bell in a square pyramidal tower (automated subsequently). [3]
The light was discontinued in 1933 and auctioned off as surplus in 1936.
The lighthouse was purchased in 1978 by Andrew Wyeth. His son Jamie now owns it. He reconstructed the white square pyramid bell house, and it is said to be a scaled-down replica of one of Lord Horatio Nelson's cabins on HMS Victory. The lighthouse has appeared in several Wyeth paintings, including Fog Bell (1967) [4] and Signal Flags by Andrew Wyeth. Other lighthouse images by James Wyeth are: Iris at Sea [5] (painted as a fund raising project to benefit the Island Institute of Rockland); Lighthouse Dandelions; [6] The Gaggle (1995) [7] Southern Island Sunset (1995), [8] and Lighthouse. [9] The light and the island are the subjects of paintings by the Wyeths, including some, from the personal collection of Andrew Wyeth and Betsy Jane Wyeth, which are at the Farnsworth Art Museum in a special Wyeth collection, [10] [11] and part of the museum's periodically rotating shows. [12] Jamie Wyeth has found the environs of Southern Island to be an inspiration for his art. [13]
One of eight privately owned lights in Maine, it has no formal support group, though Maine is the location of the American Lighthouse Foundation and Lighthouse Digest magazine. [2]
Andrew Wyeth and the Tenants Harbor Light were the subject of an encomium published by the Island Institute: Island Journal Turns 25 (2009), It is said to include an 'extraordinary folio" of Andrew Wyeth's island work, as he was "a man who loved islands", particularly those in Maine. [14]
Tenants Harbor Light was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as "Tenants Harbor Light Station" on November 20, 1987, reference number 87002026. [1]
St. George is a town in Knox County, Maine, United States. It includes the villages of Port Clyde and Tenants Harbor, with the latter being town's commercial center. A favorite with artists, writers and naturalists, St. George is home to the Brothers and Hay Ledge nature preserve, comprising four islands off Port Clyde. The town's population stands at 2,594 residents, according to the 2020 Census.
Monhegan is an island in the Gulf of Maine. A plantation, a minor civil division in the state of Maine falling between unincorporated area and a town, it is located approximately 12 nautical miles (22 km) off the mainland and is part of Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The population was 64 at the 2020 census. The plantation comprises its namesake island and the neighboring island of Manana. The island is accessible by scheduled boat service from Boothbay Harbor, New Harbor and Port Clyde. Visitors' cars are not allowed on the island. It was designated a United States National Natural Landmark for its coastal and island flora in 1966.
Andrew Newell Wyeth was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He believed he was also an abstractionist, portraying subjects in a new, meaningful way. The son of N. C. Wyeth and father of Jamie Wyeth, he was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. James H. Duff explores the art and lives of the three men in An American Vision: Three Generations of Wyeth Art. Raised with an appreciation of nature, Wyeth took walks that fired his imagination. Henry David Thoreau, Robert Frost, and King Vidor's The Big Parade (1925) inspired him intellectually and artistically. Wyeth featured in a documentary The Metaphor in which he discussed Vidor's influence on the creation of his works of art, like Winter 1946 and Portrait of Ralph Kline. Wyeth was also inspired by Winslow Homer and Renaissance artists.
Spring Point Ledge Light is a sparkplug lighthouse in South Portland, Maine, which marks a dangerous obstruction on the west side of the main shipping channel into Portland Harbor. It is now adjacent to the campus of Southern Maine Community College. It was constructed in 1897 and automated in 1960.
James Browning Wyeth is an American realist painter, son of Andrew Wyeth, and grandson of N.C. Wyeth. He was raised in Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania, and is artistic heir to the Brandywine School tradition — painters who worked in the rural Brandywine River area of Delaware and Pennsylvania, portraying its people, animals, and landscape.
Christina's World is a 1948 painting by American painter Andrew Wyeth and one of the best-known American paintings of the mid-20th century. It is a tempera work done in a realist style, depicting a woman in an incline position on the ground in a treeless, mostly tawny field, looking up at a gray house on the horizon, a barn, and various other small outbuildings are adjacent to the house. It is held by the Museum of Modern Art, in New York.
The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, United States, is an art museum that specializes in American art. Its permanent collection includes works by such artists as Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Eastman Johnson, Fitz Henry Lane, Frank Benson, Childe Hassam, Will Barnet, and Maurice Prendergast, as well as a significant collection of works by the 20th-century sculptor Louise Nevelson. Four galleries are devoted to contemporary art.
Port Clyde is the southernmost settlement on the St. George peninsula in central/coastal Maine and part of the town of St. George in Knox County, Maine, United States. The ZIP Code for Port Clyde is 04855.
Bass Harbor Head Light is a lighthouse located within Acadia National Park in the southwest portion of Mount Desert Island, Maine, marking the entrance to Bass Harbor and Blue Hill Bay.
Whaleback Light is a historic lighthouse marking the mouth of the Piscataqua River in Kittery, Maine. It is located on a rocky outcrop offshore southwest of Fort Foster and south of Wood Island in Kittery. The present tower was built in 1872. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
Marshall Point Light Station is a lighthouse at the entrance of Port Clyde Harbor in Port Clyde, Maine. The light station was established in 1832.
The Burnt Island Light, built in 1821, is the second oldest surviving lighthouse in Maine. It hosts a living history museum run by the state Department of Marine Resources. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Burnt Island Light Station on November 23, 1977.
The Cuckolds Light, known as the Cuckolds Island Fog Signal and Light Station or just Cuckolds Light Station, is a lighthouse located on the eastern pair of islets known as the "Cuckolds" in Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The islets are southeast and in sight of Cape Island, that is just off the southern tip of Cape Newagen on Southport Island, south of Booth Bay, that leads to Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
The Fiddler's Reach Fog Signal is a fog signal station located on the Kennebec River in Arrowsic, Maine, in Sagadahoc County. It is about 1,100 feet (340 m) SW of the front light of the Doubling Point Range Lights, and about 2,000 feet (610 m) east of Doubling Point Light. The pyramidal bell structure was built in 1914, two years after a large steamship, the Ransom B. Fuller, ran aground in the fog on this section of the river.
Carolyn Wyeth, daughter of N.C. Wyeth and sister of Andrew Wyeth, was a well-known artist in her own right. Her hometown was Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She worked and taught out of N. C. Wyeth House and Studio. Her nephew, Jamie Wyeth was one of her students.
Olson House is a 14-room Colonial farmhouse in Cushing, Maine. The house was made famous by its depiction in Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World. The house and its occupants, Christina and Alvaro Olson, were depicted in numerous paintings and sketches by Wyeth from 1939 to 1968. The house was designated as a National Historic Landmark in June 2011. The Farnsworth Art Museum owns the house; it is open to the public.
Wind from the Sea is a 1947 painting by the American artist Andrew Wyeth. It depicts an inside view of an open attic window as the wind blows the thin and tattered curtains into the room.
Maidenhair is a 1974 painting by the American artist Andrew Wyeth. It depicts a young bride-to-be sitting alone in the Old German Meeting House in Waldoboro, Maine.
Betsy James Wyeth was an author and art collector. She was also the business manager and archivist of her husband, artist Andrew Wyeth.