Thomas Hoyne (1924- 1989)
Oil on canvas, titled "Parting the Crest, The Helen G. Wells at Gloucester" signed lower right, "Thomas Hoyne" "C" (copyright), dated 1985. This detailed and energetic painting depicts 3 Gloucester fishing schooners sailing towards the horizon with a wave breaking with a high degree of realism. Hoyne was a master at capturing wave action. There is a detailed view of the standing rigging showing both lines and blocks. There are a few barrels sitting on the deck and forward there are four standing fishermen next to various deck hatches and fittings. Painted on the transom of the schooner on the left is the name "HELEN G. WELLS." (PA1048)
Condition: Excellent.
Dimensions of Painting: Height 30 1/4, Width 38 Inches.
Dimensions 0f Frame: Height 41 1/2, Width 49 1/8.
Note 1: On the reverse is an undated label of the American Society of Marine Artists indicating that the painting had been entered in into a juried show, circa 1985.
Provenance: The painting has a note on the backpaper with the name of the owner “Property of Aidrian S. Hooper, 222 Van Tulero Road, Devon PA. . Mr. Hopper was president of the Board of the Independent Seaport Museum and a collector of Hoyne paintings.
Exhibition: The Independent Seaport Museum hosted an exhibit featuring 48 paintings by Thomas Hoyne. It was titled “Fishing on the Grand Banks: The Marine Art of Thomas Hoyne”, June 16 – Sept 39, 2005. The painting described above is illustrated in the exhibition article. Two other Hoyne paintings also owed by Adrian Hooper, are also in the article: one titled "The Antagonist" and painted around 1986 appeared while a second, titled "Taking a Bath in the Georges" 1988. The fright and difficulties of fishing in the North Atlantic are conveyed in this first-ever retrospective of paintings by Hoyne. The paintings were augmented with memorabilia from Hoyne's studio and life, along with related artifacts, including ship models.
Biography: Hoyne worked for most of his career as a commercial artist drawing famous advertising icons such as the Jolly Green Giant and the Charmin baby. But in mid-life, after being diagnosed with cancer, he changed career paths and became a marine artist. Although Hoyne only lived and painted for another 17 years, he was considered to be one of the finest contemporary marine artists in the world until his death in 1989. While Hoyne painted many scenes depicting maritime activity, most of his work evokes the terrors and hardships of fishing from sailing vessels on the notoriously inhospitable Grand Banks of the northern Atlantic.
Many consider Hoyne's greatest strength as a painter was his ability to depict vessels realistically, showing the vessels and crew working along the fishing banks of New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. It is said that the water shown in a Hoyne painting "feels" wet if you touch the surface of the artwork, a testament to the degree of realism the artist brought to his work. His intuitive feel for water perhaps was enhanced by his experiences on the water during his service in the Navy during World War II.
A founding fellow of the American Society of Marine Artists, Hoyne brought life to his canvases and breath to the working sailors he portrayed. Because of his meticulous studio methods, he was able to produce paintings that have become known for their accuracy in depicting vessels and their crews at sea. He commissioned Erik A. R. Ronnberg, one of the finest ship modelers, to build models that became the subjects of his paintings. To capture the vessel's movement in water, Hoyne positioned the model in a tray of kitty litter, and then raked the kitty litter against the model as water would rake against a ship. These miniature seascapes were then sketched and photographed in order to produce possible compositions for paintings.
Hoyne used a similarly thorough method to create the figures in the paintings. His standard practice was to pose and photograph himself in costume. Using these self-created resources, Hoyne produced color sketches and drawings. A full-size drawing finalized the composition. This final drawing would then be traced onto the canvas and followed with the application of paint. "On the easel of another painter this insistence on precision might have resulted in wooden and stilted images. But Hoyne's deep involvement with and reverent admiration for the fishermen and the skippers led to an extraordinary blending of truth and life, enhanced with the exclusionary eye of the artist -- a combination rarely achieved in the field of nautical art."
Hoyne produced about 100 marine paintings, many of which have already found their way into major museum collections, including Mystic Seaport Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, and Maine Maritime Museum. In addition, many of his paintings were made into limited-edition prints, which have sold out over the years.
Publications:
Pulication 1: Reese Palley and Marilyn Arnold Palley, authors of "Wooden Ships and Iron Men: Maritime Art of Thomas Hoyne", published by W.W. Norton. This painting is illustrated and described on page 120.
Publication 2: "Bound for Blue Water: Contemporary American Marine Art" by J. Russell Jinishian, Greenwich Workshop Press 2003. This book discussed and showed the work of several contemporary American Marine Masters, pages 36 -37. The book illustrated two of Hoyne’s Grand Banks fishing boat paintings. He also mentioned that Hoyne’s productivity was only somewhat over 100 paintings.
