“Fresh Paint and Recent Acquisitions” opens Saturday, Sept. 22 at the Wiscasset Bay Gallery. The exhibition showcases recent acquisitions of 19th and 20th century American and European paintings, as well as oils, pastels and watercolors by the gallery’s regionally and nationally recognized contemporary New England artists. 

Highlighting the exhibition are fresh new works by New England contemporary artists, including a vibrant pastel by Tom Curry entitled “Escape.” Contrasting Curry’s bold use of color and geometric shapes is a soft sepia-toned figural study entitled “Hand on Foot and Knee” by Roberta Goschke depicting a lone figure at rest. 

Impressionistic Maine landscapes, such as “Schooner, Camden Harbor” by Keith Oehmig and “Billowing Clouds, Beals Island” by Michael Graves are also on display. Paintings by Diana Johnson, Tom McCobb, Joan and Carlton Plummer, Don Stone, J. Thomas R. Higgins, Geer Morton, Judith Magyar and Marjorie Moskowitz round out the gallery’s contemporary offerings.

19th and 20th century American and European paintings include a collection of bright and energetic acrylics by New York artist Alfred Peter Frank Sandford (American, 1928-2011) of Monhegan Island. Sandford, who studied at the Art Students League in New York City, returned to Monhegan Island every summer for more than 30 years. His works, such as “Lighthouse Keeper’s House, Monhegan,” are full of energy and painted with loose brushstrokes, exhibiting the artist’s interest in design and color. 

Also on display are a group of watercolors and oils by noted artists William Zorach (American, 1887-1966) and John Fulton Folinsbee (American, 1892-1972). Zorach’s “Tree, Yosemite, 1920,” offers a colorful vista out into the celebrated national park’s interior, a lone tree in the foreground, its form abstracted by the cropped composition of the watercolor. 

Folinsbee’s “Tidal Shore,” painted with a combination of loose brushwork and thick palette knife strokes, is a bold representation of a rocky Maine coastline, the rock ledges framed between the sky above and the shimmering ocean below. 

Complementing these modernist works are more traditional American genre paintings such as “The Pet Rabbit” by Constant Mayer (American, 1832-1911), a soft representation of a young girl holding the rabbit with great tenderness and affection. Harry Roseland (American, 1866-1950), who specialized in interior genre scenes, is represented with “To Old Friends,” a realistically rendered painting of a group of men discussing art, literature and current events. 

A pair of intimate oils of a Venetian gondolier and the Venetian lagoon looking towards San Giorgio by Maurice Bompard (French, 1857-1936), as well as a dramatic marine painting by German artist Manfred Lindemann-Frommel (1851-1938) of a lighthouse surrounded by crashing surf as the sky clears in the distance, are just a few of the European works represented in this exhibition. 

"Fresh Paint and Recent Acquisitions" will be on display through November 2. For more information, call 882-7682, or visit www.wiscassetbaygallery.com. The Wiscasset Bay Gallery is open daily from 10:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and is located at 67 Main St., Route One, in historic Wiscasset village.