Art/Paintings

Item Description

"Goliath", 2002 by Ronald Frontin. Donated by Ronald Frontin and Bob Bird of Jaret & Cohn Real Estate. Signed and numbered unframed printers proof  (3 of 3). Giclée print, 23" wide x 17 1/2" tall. For more information on Ronald Frontin's art, please contact Bob Bird at 207-354-3600.

Note: this item has a reserve price.

ABOUT RONALD FRONTIN

Ronald Frontin is a contemporary Maine painter who continues the American realist tradition of Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins with his fastidiously rendered figural images set on the coast and in the countryside. His subjects include the hardworking fisherman and farmers of Maine and his family and friends.

Frontin was born in Camden, Maine, in 1962 and today resides near the town of Rockland. Indeed, he only lived out of his home state briefly, while attending the Philadelphia College of Art (1981-85) and while apprenticing in Andalusia, Pennsylvania, with the noted realist painter Nelson Shanks (1985-88) .

Frontin's outdoor scenes portray the hardy individuals who make their living from the fields, rivers, beaches, and bays of Maine. The artist, who himself enjoys working in the open air, is interested in painting people who are physically engaged with nature and who are unaware that they are being studied; the opposite of posed works, these images convey respect for the grueling and absorbing tasks of outdoor life and capture the particular light and mood of the Maine landscape.

In Winnower (Cat. 5), a pale and bony shirtless boy in a broad-brimmed hat and gloves performs his field chores on a cold morning; his lithe yet strong physique and indifference to the day's chill epitomizes a particular brand of Maine hardiness, while the light has a cool glow that is also especially characteristic of the state.

In Harvest (Cat. 7) , another boy, seen broadly against a starkly foreshortened field, clutches a heavy basket and wears the intent expression of someone already well used to the daily rigors of outdoor work.

A similar mood is expressed in Overwhelmed (Cat. 10), which portrays a fisherman resting in shallow water on the edge of his rowboat, the stunning breadth of Maine's wildness revealed in the way that the figure is dwarfed by the dense forest rising from the rocky shore. The light is hard and sharp, augmenting the solitary feeling evoked by the subject.

Below the Surface (Cat. 1) depicts a view of a shallow bay where clammers are at work. Here a stillness is evoked in the composition's repeated horizontals, the slow moving ripples on the water's surface, and the isolation of the men from each other. Portraying the man in the foreground so engaged by his work that he is unaware that his shirt has slipped down, Frontin pays homage to the degree of concentration, patience, and steady effort required by this arduous type of work. The wispy cumuli, isolated against a crisp blue sky, suggest the piercing clarity of Maine's atmosphere.

In his portraits, Frontin is inspired by the great art of the past. Whereas many contemporary artists use portraiture to their own ends, Frontin is interested in a traditional approach to the genre in which the artist's style is subservient to the subject, and in which the finished work is true to its sitter. He has created many commissioned portraits, including several depictions of prominent Maine figures, but he also paints subjects of his own choosing. An example is his three-quarters length standing view of his eleven-year old niece Avens (Cat. 2) , which evokes the art of John Singer Sargent in its controlled light, realism, and format. Here Frontin portrayed a pretty girl, but his painting looks beyond the subject's attractiveness and youth, conveying a wise, introspective nature that would normally be associated with a much older sitter.

With their poetic undertones and personal subject matter, Frontin's paintings have an affinity with those of Andrew Wyeth. Soundly crafted and thoughtfully composed, Frontin's works reveal his desire not to impose his own point of view on a subject, but rather to derive inspiration directly from it, allowing its intrinsic nature to emerge.

Item Special Note

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Note: This item has a reserve price.

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