My mother died twenty years ago, but for me, she is a constant presence. As her only child, not only did I inherit her artworks, her correspondence, and all her other possessions, I also became the repository of her artistic reputation and extensive body of work. At that time, I was living alone working full time for an investment advisory firm in Boston.
One of her close colleagues recently nudged me to write an article about what it entails both physically and emotionally to inherit a relative’s remaining works of art. Coincidentally, in connection with a special Founders exhibit at the Maine Art Gallery in Wiscasset a year ago (where she had served on the Board of Directors), I had been invited to not only exhibit one of her works, but to participate in a discussion of what it meant to be the “daughter of an artist.”
I spoke about visiting the Museum of Modern Art when I was seven. My mother turned this excursion into an adventure of discovery. We entered one gallery and she asked me to select my favorite. Then, she asked me to identify another work by that artist. The experience was entirely visual because at age seven I could not read the labels. The artist in question was Kurt Schwitters.
As the years went by, our favorite times together involved visiting galleries and museums where she taught me to appreciate not only the quality of the artist’s technique, but my personal response. She would point out the flaws and the brilliance of an unusual composition, the colors, the brush work, the boldness . . .
We were living on Long Island, and I was ten when she asked me if I could manage being alone for a couple of hours after school because she wanted to study at the Art Students League in New York City. I remember saying “sure,” but only later did I realize what anxiety that conversation caused her and how many years she had been waiting to ask for my permission. Soon after, she rented a studio on 14th street (Union Square) with a fellow student. I visited frequently, but refused to pose for them. I was an awkward adolescent, but as I write this as a mature woman, I so wish I had allowed her to paint me.
Lina in the studio.
My parents retired to Maine in 1972, and shortly thereafter built a small studio on their property. When I inherited the studio it had been unused for over a year. I was emotionally unable to enter her soul-space for many months. I soon discovered that the non-profit galleries where she had served on various committees, on their boards and as president, could no longer exhibit her work. Their non-profit status was based on supporting and encouraging living artists. I had to retrieve her unsold works from two commercial galleries in Maine and Massachusetts where she had exhibited for many years. I was simultaneously frustrated, despondent and also angry that I could not find a path forward to share her art with others.
Thankfully, the Maine Art Gallery honored her by providing showcase space along with their annual August Members’ exhibit. On the advice of one of her closest colleagues, I invited the curator of American Art from the Portland Museum of Art to attend. She later came to the studio and selected two works for their permanent collection. When I saw her painting on exhibit there, I began to cry.
Lina’s palette.
I had now inherited a studio not only filled with completed artworks but the rejected attempts, along with oil, acrylic, and watercolor paints, rolls of canvas, stretchers, special watercolor paper made in France, dozens of brushes, palette knives, drawing paper, frames, sheets of glass, etc. Filing cabinets and shelves were crammed with art books, catalogues, magazines, and newspaper clippings, not to mention still-life props for the weekly workshops she had conducted for over thirty years.
It was time to face the daunting task of divesting. I filled a ten-yard dumpster in eight hours, but that was eighteen years ago and the job is not quite finished.
Years later, following my retirement, I donated a truckload of unused canvases, drawing paper, aluminum, wooden frames and portable easels to the local high school Art department. I’ve donated paintings to the Boothbay Harbor YMCA, the Library and to the Boothbay Region Land Trust’s periodic fund raising art auctions. Sadly, I recently discovered that dozens of carefully rolled up oil canvases had been destroyed by mice. There are few high quality works of hers remaining.
Lina Burley, oil painting.
I have rented gallery space at the Boothbay Region Art Foundation (BRAF) and River Arts in Damariscotta. Arranging for publicity and delivering and hanging her works was time-consuming, physically challenging and initially unrewarding. However, to my delight over a year later two large oil paintings were purchased by visitors to the BRAF exhibit. I have recently learned that my home is the best exhibit space. However, the special space her studio represents to me lives on. It is now home to a renowned marine artist who fully appreciates the light and her legacy.
P.S.: Mother asked me to donate her extensive collection of art books and exhibition catalogues to Bowdoin College. I agreed, but she and I had not anticipated the difficulty involved in collecting and cataloguing well over 100 volumes only to learn that due to the internet, they were no longer wanted. Considering the inadequacy of the internet in reproducing color correctly, I am disappointed that these volumes may have been lost to posterity. Bowdoin declined the donation. My alma mater, Middlebury, accepted with the proviso that they could give away any volumes they didn’t want. I drove to Vermont with a carload of over 100 books which I deemed invaluable, but, sadly, unappreciated.
Image at top: Lina Burley, oil painting.