MANHATTAN — Kansas State’s Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art is featuring the landscapes of rural Maine in its latest exhibition, “Neil Welliver: Maine Seasons.”
The exhibition showcases three canvas paintings by Neil Welliver, 1929-2005, who is known for his large landscapes of rural Maine. Welliver set up his easel in the state’s woods, along its shorelines, and atop its peaks, in all seasons and all weather.
In a warmer studio, Welliver translated his painted studies into charcoal-on-paper compositions, which he stapled to a massive canvas. He traced the drawing using a sewing pouncing wheel, which left a pattern of dots on the fabric. He then began painting, starting in the upper left corner and moving across and down.
The paintings feature landscapes devoid of humans except for an imagined hiker-viewer. Welliver once said, “I am very interested in the idea of the spectator entering a picture … to, in fact, not see the picture as an object but really actively enter into it … in a psychological sense.”
Welliver’s paintings are on loan from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. The Beach Museum of Art is a borrowing institution of the Art Bridges Collection Loan Partnership, which is a foundation dedicated to expanding access to American art across the United States.
The Beach Museum is on the K-State campus at 701 Beach Ln., and is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays; and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Admission is free as is parking adjacent to the building.
