SCARBOROUGH, Maine — By all accounts, Winslow Homer was happy living in Maine during the last 26 years of his life. He just wasn’t keen on uninvited company, as his home made clear.
“He had, famously, a door knocker in the shape of the head of Medusa, meant to ward off unwitting visitors,” says Ramey Mize, an assistant curator at the Portland Museum of Art. “But always with a wink.”
Long acclaimed as one of the great artists this country has produced — The New York Times recently said his work “reveals a contemporary relevance that no other 19th-century American painter can muster."
Homer moved from New York to Maine in 1884 and stayed year-round for the rest of his days. He lived on Prouts Neck, a small peninsula in Scarborough, in a former carriage house that he transformed into a studio and home.
What clearly most appealed to Homer was the setting with its unobstructed view of the ocean. The drama of the sea became a subject he returned to in painting after painting.
“He once wrote ‘The sun will not rise or set without my notice and thanks,’” Mize says. “You can see it in his work. His work [in Maine] takes on a new confidence, a new vigor, and kind of clarity of focus that I think this landscape really brought out in him.”
The Portland Museum of Art purchased the studio in 2006 and eventually opened it to the public. Recent improvements, such as recorded sounds of the scratching of a paintbrush or the barking of a Jack Russell terrier like Homer’s, make a visit more engaging, more immersive.
Tours begin at the Portland Museum of Art, where patrons can look at some of Homer’s paintings. Then a shuttle bus whisks visitors — never more than 12 at a time — to Prouts Neck to take in the studio and the yard that slopes down to the ocean. It is a step back in time to a place that feels surprisingly relatable.
“He didn’t need much. It’s not some grand mansion,” Mize says. “It’s very humble and minimal in many respects. But it has that sort of classic Maine cottage feel.”