A Gloucester duo.(Current and coming)

Appropriately for a summer exhibition, a group of fifty works by the painters Fitz Henry Lane and Mary Blood Mellen have been brought together in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where for a time both artists lived and painted. On view at the Cape Ann Historical Museum from July 7 to September 16, Fitz Henry Lane and Mary Blood Mellen: Old Mysteries and New Discoveries will also be shown at the Spanierman Gallery in New York City from October 4 to December 1. The idea for the exhibition is an interesting one. A small museum, a New York gallery, and a major scholar have brought these paintings together with the idea of showing the challenges they present instead of putting forth an already arrived-at thesis. The curator of the exhibition, John Wilmerding, wrote the major monograph on Lane in 1971 (revised in 2005), but he has found much that remains puzzling about the painter's life and practices, and suggested that this gathering of works by Lane and his sometimes assistant, collaborator, and student, Mellen, might foster some new ideas and scholarship.

While Lane and his work are well-known, knowledge of Mellen and her paintings is less so. To date, the article published in The Magazine ANTIQUES in November 1991 by Michael Moses is the most complete account available. Since then several new paintings by both artists have come to light; a few more Lanes are now considered to be copies made by Mellen, and some others are known to have been painted by both. Luckily, several paintings are inscribed as copied by Mellen or are signed by both artists, so there has been a basis to work from. Until now, however, no such group of works by both artists has been physically brought together for close inspection and comparison.

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In general Mellen's work is considered not as meticulous in the rendering of details as Lane's, and this can be seen especially in the handling of ship riggings. Furthermore, Wilmerding notes, her "reflections in ripples of water are not as subtle or nuanced; often her vessels seem to sit on the water surface, rather than in the water .... her rocks are noticeably softer and more doughy." Her colors, most evidently in ...