PORTSMOUTH HISTORICAL SOCIETY
presents...
Discover Portsmouth Center's
SUNDAY SALONS
Corner of Middle & Congress Streets
Reservations: 603.436.8420
Tickets $10. ($8. for PHS members)
All performances begin at 2pm
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
September 21
Stories of the Seacoast
Pontine Theatre's Greg Gathers & Marguerite Mathews present a program of scenes from their original stage adaptations of popular literature about Portsmouth drawn from Charles Brewster's RAMBLES ABOUT PORTSMOUTH and Thomas Bailey Aldrich's THE STORY OF A BAD BOY.
September 28, 2008
A Visit to the Isles of Shoals with Stephanie Voss Nugent.
A slide presentation introducing the rocky archipelago that lies just off the NH coast. Meet the hardy people who lived on these islands; hear tales of pirates and ghosts, shipwrecks and grand hotels; and enjoy wonderful photographs from the 1870s that chronicle the transformation of Star Island from the tiny fishing village of Gosport into an island resort.
October 5, 2008
Lively Boys! Lively Boys!
Popular Seacoast historian, J. Dennis Robinson, examines the "bad boy" literary genre that began in Portsmouth, NH and sparked the later work of Mark Twain. "Story of a Bad Boy" author TB Aldrich attended school at what is now the Discover Portsmouth Center and his novel, THE STORY OF A BAD BOY still lives today in Dennis the Menace and Bart Simpson. This fast-paced slideshow reveals much about Portsmouth's past on the 100th anniversary of the Aldrich memorial
October 12, 2008
A Short History of the Art Song & Theatre Music in America with Angelynne Hinson & Alexandra Borrie.
Spend a Sunday afternoon with these talented performers and several of their friends as they explore American songs of the 20th century. Listen to the music of Copland, Ives, and Barber as well as Kern, Bernstein and Sondheim. Angelynne and Alexandra are the hosts of "Second Sunday: exploring connections between theatre and music" airing on WSCA 106.1 fm, the second Sunday of each month beginning October 2008.
October 19, 2008
Remarkable Life of Celia Laighton Thaxter with Stephanie Voss Nugent.
A slide presentation exploring the remarkable life of Celia Thaxter, from her childhood on White Island Light to her unexpected fame as a writer. Participants join actor Stephanie Voss Nugent "backstage," as she transforms historical research into performance. From the vantage point of the actor stepping into a role, we examine the forces that shaped Thaxter's work and are introduced to some of the writers, musicians, and artists who followed Celia to her island home each summer.
October 26, 2008
Poems of Place. with Mimi White.
The popular Portsmouth Poet Laureate Emerita is joined by fellow Seacoast poets, for readings of poems of New Hampshire and poems of the sea.
July 13, 2008
John Paul Jones Birthday Party
US Navy color guard and concert by Seacoast Wind Ensemble followed by birthday cake.
Located on lawn of the John Paul Jones House.
July 11, 2008
John Paul Jones Birthday Celebration
John Paul Jones movie (1959) will be shown at the Discover Portsmouth Center at 7PM.
Suggested donation $3
July 01, 2008
New Hampshire Then and Now
Opening at the Discover Portsmouth Center with remarks by Peter Randall at 7PM.
From Impressionism to Yankee Modernism
In conjunction with the Portsmouth Athenaeum, this exhibition explores the art of Russell
Cheney (1881–1945) through his views of northern New England --landscapes, portraits,
nd still life studies – including many newly discovered works.
The youngest of eleven children in a family of well-to-do silk manufacturers, Russell
Cheney graduated from Yale in 1904. Over the next decade he studied at the Art Students League
in New York and at the Academie Julian in Paris. Returning home, he created an elaborate painting
studio in the former stable of his family home in South Manchester, Connecticut and began to
exhibit his work.
From 1910 to 1915 Cheney summered at York Harbor, “painting out of doors at York and
Ogunquit, Maine” and studying with Charles Woodbury. Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1916,
Cheney spent much of World War I in Colorado’s Cragmor Sanatorium for his health. Between
1916 and 1921 he visited his friends Charles and Evelyn Macdonald and painted at Red Echo Farm in
Topsham, Vermont.
He first summered in Kittery in 1927 and by 1930 made his permanent home beside the Piscataqua.
His style had already evolved into a Yankee modernism that captured his native New England in more
emotive ways. While “Cheney’s art presumably grew out of his response to Cézanne
and the Impressionists,” Art Digest noted in 1947, but “there is little trace left
in his simplified realism.“
T. H. Parker described the artist’s new work, “in which Fords, houses, lunch-wagons
and lampposts have no value pictorially, but resolve themselves into … line, mass, plane
and rhythm, which combines into compact, unified and emphatic design.” Cheney’s
regional landscapes “extract the essence of the scene by contrasting the typical cubes of
New England buildings with the rolling land.”
Dorothy Adlow, art critic for the Christian Science Monitor, later called him “a New
England artist who enjoyed the exhilarating influence of modern French painting a modern American
romantic. The imagery that captured his interest was imbued with a zestful vivacity.”
Small-town New Castle, Portsmouth’s landmarks and waterfront, and coastal Maine during the
inter-war decades were part of what made Cheney a “New England and American master.
Dorothy Adlow, art critic for the Christian Science Monitor, later called him “a New
England artist who enjoyed the exhilarating influence of modern French painting a modern American
romantic. The imagery that captured his interest was imbued with a zestful vivacity.”
Small-town New Castle, Portsmouth’s landmarks and waterfront, and coastal Maine during the
inter-war decades were part of what made Cheney a “New England and American master.
For more information about Russell Cheney see: www.russellcheney.com
For more information about Portsmouth Athenaeum see: www.portsmouthathenaeum.org
Download Antiques and Fine Arts article (summer 2008 issue)
Events Elsewhere
The Portsmouth Historical Society encourages you to participate in the programs of the many
other organizations and institutions with an interest in the history of our region. The links
on our Web Resources page will take you to the
websites of many of these organizations. In addition, you may find the following programs of interest.
Portsmouth Historical Society
We Tell Portsmouth Stories
