Fitz Henry Lane - Redux
Fitz Henry Lane, Becalmed Off Halfway Rock, 1860, Oil on Canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. Fitzhenrylane.org/catalog.
During the 19th century, Fitz Henry Lane became the country's premier maritime artist while capturing the coastal soul of Gloucester with his glorious compositions and technique. A visit to Cape Ann Museum’s re-envisioned Lane Gallery is COSMOS Select for Best of March.
Fitz Henry Lane, Brace's Rock, 1864. Oil on canvas. Collection of the Cape Ann Museum. [Acc#2007.10]
Could there be a more fortuitous happenstance than the existence of Gloucester native Fitz Henry Lane (1804-1865), a keen-eyed painter in possession of supreme artistic gifts, and the unrecorded regional landscape in the pre-photography era of the 19th century? His lifelong painting presence captured the magnificence of Gloucester's harbors and other coastal seascapes, with their variety of water, sky, and vessels, in stillness and in motion. The works of Lane represent both artistry and history.
The Cape Ann Museum, owning some 100 of the estimated 300 paintings, lithographs, and drawings attributed to Lane, is the main custodian of America's premier marine painter of the 19th century. Many of the works, acquired from local families who had owned Lane paintings through generations, are now part of a beautifully curated showcase.
The Fitz Henry Lane Gallery is a treasure box of shimmering paintings suspended on muted rose and teal-colored walls. The collection is staged as a ceremonious progression through his evolving artistry. The visitor moves slowly through the gallery, as one exquisite painting dissolves into the next, creating a transcendental portal through time and into the scenery and atmosphere of Lane's world. The experience concludes too soon, with his most masterful paintings and the end of his life at the age of 62. His artistry was still evolving, and he left us with his best.
Although Lane’s life ended 155 years ago, research into his career and his artistic accomplishments continues today, and the Cape Ann Museum is pleased to keep abreast of that ongoing work and make contributions to the effort when we can.
—Cape Ann Museum Curator Martha Oaks
Fitz Henry Lane, Gloucester Harbor from Rocky Neck, 1844. Cape Ann Museum, Gift of Jane Parker Stacey, 1948.
During the 2020 shutdown, Cape Ann Museum made changes to the Lane gallery, to better accommodate the ongoing scholarship on the painter, and to dedicate space within the gallery for continuous new exhibits related to Lane.
The gallery’s new look also aims to align more fully with Fitz Henry Lane Online, a free digital catalogue raisonné created in association with the Cape Ann Museum, as well as to make a strong connection to the Museum’s new campus, the Cape Ann Museum Green, where Lane fashioned his 1863 paintings of the historic Babson-Alling and White-Ellery Houses with their surrounding landscape. For more details regarding changes to the gallery, Lane Gallery Re-envisioned.
Fitz Henry Lane, The Babson Meadows at Riverdale, 1863. Oil on canvas. Gift of Roger W. Babson, 1937.
Fitz Henry Lane's early talent became evident with his drawing skills, which transferred to lithographic technique and the beginning of his career at the age of 27, when he was hired by Pendleton’s Lithography firm in Boston. Rick Russack, writing in Antiques and the Arts Weekly, November 2017, commented that “Lane’s first major design for Pendleton was the “View of an Old building at the Corner of Ann St., Boston” of 1835. Because of the building’s location at the intersection of Dock Square and North Street, this street view was a complex composition. Sharp angles of the buildings required knowledge of perspective. Fellow lithographer Benjamin Champney wrote many years after the fact that Lane was adept at urban views because of his understanding of perspective.”
The illustration of sheet music covers, business cards, advertising and books were among his first assignments. From lithography he moved into oil painting where his full genius was realized.
To learn more about Fitz Henry Lane:
Fitz Henry Lane, sheet music lithography, Pendleton Lithography, Boston.
Fitz Henry Lane, View of an Old building at the Corner of Ann St., Boston, 1835, lithography.
Fitz Henry Lane, View of the Great Conflagration, redrawn by Lane after original by Wadsworth.
Fitz Henry Lane, Burning Packet Ship “Boston,” watercolor, Cape Ann Museum.
Fitz Henry Lane, Castine from Hospital Island, lithograph.
Fitz Henry Lane, A Calm Sea, 1854. Oil on canvas. Gift of Alice Pattilio Woodbury.
