Cityscape / Industrial
ABRAHAM LEON KROLL (1884–1974)
Building the Ship, 1916
Oil on canvas, 46 x 52 in.
Signed and dated (at lower right): Leon Kroll 1916
RECORDED: Nancy Hale and Fredson Bowers, ed., Leon Kroll: A Spoken Memoir (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1983), pp. 42–43 // Charles Brock, ed., George Bellows, exhib. cat. (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2012), p. 323, n. 43
EXHIBITED: Venice, Italy, 1930, XVII Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte della Citta di Venezia, no. 188 // American Federation of Art, New York, traveling, 1964–66, Maine—50 Artists of the Twentieth Century, no. 20 // Maine Coast Artists Gallery, Rockland, Maine, 1969 // United States Department of State, American Embassy, Paris France, 1970–72 // William Farnsworth Museum and Library, Rockland, Maine, October 1979, 20th Century Masters in Maine
EX COLL.: the artist, until 1969; to Thomas J. Watson, Jr., North Haven, Maine; by gift to his brother, Arthur K. Watson, North Haven, Maine, until l974; to his estate, until 1976; by gift to the Camden Public Library, Maine, 1976 until the present
In June 1916, Leon Kroll was painting in Eddyville, on the eastern edge of New York’s Catskill Mountains, when he received a letter from his friend Robert Henri. Henri wrote that their mutual friend, George Bellows, was in Camden, Maine, “lonely and in a rut.” “Why don’t you go and paint near George? He’d like you to, very much.” Kroll responded immediately, recalling that “I took my little car and drove to Maine, and I settled at Camden in a little house right next to the Bellows family.”
Camden proved productive for both artists. Kroll explained that “the Government was building those wooden ships for the war.... All the shipyards along the Maine coast were building these great big wooden freight ships.” Inspired by the spectacle of a massive hulk under construction, Kroll painted Building the Ship. Bellows admired the work. “That’s a beautiful motif. Do you mind if I paint the same motif?” The result was Bellows’ powerful series of paintings that included The Teamster (1916, Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine); The Rope or Builders of Ships (1916, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven); The Skeleton (1916, Wichita Museum of Art, Kansas); and Shipyard Society (1916, private collection).
For a visiting artist, a wooden schooner under construction at the Camden boatyard proved an exceptionally attractive subject. From a purely formal point of view, the scaffolding of ribs visible during the building process offered a compelling rhythmic pattern. For the people of Camden, however, the renewed activity at the boatyard was a reminder of the historical identity of their town and their region. In the nineteenth century, the Maine coastline was studded with boat yards, using local timber to build sailing ships that carried commercial cargo along the country’s Atlantic coastline and to ports all over the world. The boatyards encouraged ancillary industries, including skilled shops making a wide range of ship fittings to outfit the boats with everything required for launching. Boatbuilding became a key feature of regional identity as well as the Maine coast’s engine of prosperity.
The town of Camden was founded by a New Hampshire man who had initially come to the area to cut timber for masts for British ships. In 1792, Captain William McGlathry established the first Camden shipyard. In 1875, Holly M. Bean established his own business in Camden. Bean was a naval architect and master builder who had honed his skills in various Maine yards. In 1891, Bean passed the business to his son, Robert. The Bean Shipyard became famous for building four and five-masted schooners. As the era of the wooden ship passed, Robert Bean struggled to maintain the yard. World War I brought a temporary reprieve as Robert Bean successfully won a series of commissions probably related to the War. Camden saw another resurgence of boat building during World War II. Today the Camden waterfront is still busy with nautical activity, but it is now the site of boatyards and marinas catering to pleasure craft and the occasional lobster boat.
The unusually large six-masted schooner that Leon Kroll and George Bellows painted together has been identified as the Percy R. Pyne II. At the time of its construction, it excited local gossip because no one knew who had commissioned the vessel. Barbara Dyer, the late Camden town historian, wrote that when the boat was launched it “had no colors flying.... That had people talking.” Apparently, townspeople thought the boat was German sponsored and intended as a “commerce raider,” i.e., a civilian boat that attacked commercial shipping of enemy nations.
