Review: Maine
Hurrah! Celebrating 25 Years at the George Marshall Store
George Marshall Store Gallery
York, ME
georgemarshallstoregallery.com
October 24-November 29, 2020
Choosing the 46 artists to include in this 25th anniversary show was daunting. In her quarter-century tenure as gallery director, Mary Harding has featured more than 400 artists, mainly from northern New England, in shows with 250 different themes (a favorite: an August show titled 32 Degrees: Reflections of Winter with margarita snow cones served at the opening). At the same time, this intimate venue on the shore of the York River has become one of the stars of the Maine art scene.
Almost all the work is new for Hurrah!: paintings, prints, photography, sculpture, ceramics and jewelry. The chosen artists include Tom Glover, a subject of one of the first exhibitions at the gallery. A student of John Laurent, Glover emulates his teacher’s spirited approach to Maine coast subjects. His oil painting Active Pier, a brilliant collage-like composition, features fish and netting.
Tom Glover, Active Pier, 2020, oil on canvas, 32” x 36”
Among the sculptors on view is Noriko Sakanishi whose abstract-geometric wall constructions have been a mainstay of the gallery from early on. The three acrylic and mixed-media pieces in the show reflect her richly resonant minimalist approach. Her titles underscore the sharp intellect found in each piece.
Sam Cady is another wall-work artist, best known for his shaped-canvases. The Friendship, Maine-based artist’s Descending a Staircase, Southwestern Hotel is a mix of Marcel Duchamp—without the nude—and M.C. Escher. The illusion of depth and descent is remarkable.
Located at the southern end of Maine, the gallery has notably crossed state lines, with a number of New Hampshire artists in the rotation. Over the years Harding has featured one-person shows for winners of Artist Advancement Grants awarded by the Greater Piscataqua Community Foundation, including sculptor Gary Haven Smith (1948-2014), who worked in wood, bronze, marble, granite and other materials to create distinctive curvilinear pieces.
Another New Hampshire artist, Italian-born Arthur DiMambro (1928-2016), painted lively woodland and seacoast landscapes in oil. Both he and Smith worked at the University of New Hampshire: DiMambro as an orthopedic surgeon, Smith as an art instructor.
Harding’s stable has included such master painters as Tom Curry, George Lloyd, Lincoln Perry and Grant Drumheller. At the same time, she has presented Barbara Sullivan’s out-of-the-ordinary and often playful frescoes and Anna Dibble’s inventive and startling acrylic paintings that are sometimes mixed with unusual media like beach sand and cold wax.
So, hurray for Hurrah!, and congratulations to Harding on 25 years of consistently adding memorable art to our collective radar. She took an historic mid-19th-century former general store, owned and maintained by Museums of Old York, and turned it into an outstanding art destination. As they say in British TV, “Brilliant!”
–Carl Little