Abstracting the Seacoast

October 1 through November 18

Open daily, 10am to 5pm

Free to all!

In five highly individual styles, “Abstracting the Seacoast” evokes the smell of the salt marsh, the call of seagulls, and the crash of the waves along the coast. It brings to mind the bustle of the docks loading and unloading, while the ubiquitous Moran tugboats chug down the river. Historic Portsmouth, with its venerable red brick buildings, narrow side alleys, and bright, busy Market Square dissolves into the softer natural world of silver pocket beaches and deep pine and birch woods. All these impressions have been incorporated into this inspiring exhibition by these artists.

Barbara Adams

Barbara Stevens Adams began her art involvement while practicing as a psychotherapist in New Haven, Connecticut. Following her move to New Hampshire in 1990 she continued to pursue her art explorations which now have taker her to her current passion with oils and soft pastels. Barbara is a founding member and the past president of the Pastel Society of New Hampshire, a juried member of the New Hampshire Art Association, a Signature Member of the Pastel Painters of Maine, and a member of Kittery Art Association, Seacoast Art Association, and Newburyport Art Association. the focus of her art is frequently themes from her en plein air painting excursions, her abstract exploration, and her enjoyment of the many moods of the New England coast. Although no longer practicing in her profession as a psychotherapist, Barbara has continued to be an active supporter of community agencies. She supports, through her art, NH Public Television, Womenaid of Greater Portsmouth, Portsmouth Music and Art, and Seacoast Pathways.

Barbara Stevens Adams Fine Art


Dunstan Knight

Dustan Knight is a working artist living in New Castle, a small island near Portsmouth, NH. She earned her MFA at Pratt Institute in NYC during the eighties, and an MA in Art History from Boston University. After years of teaching college and graduate art classes, she has returned full-time to her studio. As a mature artist, Dustan is able to step away from the politics of the art world and delve deeply into what matters most to her. Her art practice has exploded into powerful, abstracted images that celebrate the physicality of her materials and refer to her personal experiences in her PLACE.

Dustan Knight Fine Artist

@dustyknightofficial


Brian Chu

After immigrating to the US in 1981, Brian Chu studied painting and earned an MFA in painting from Queens College, City University in New York City. The art career he started in New York expanded to exhibitions and teaching positions in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and New Hampshire. Since 2000, Brian has been a professor of art at the University of New Hampshire. He has had exhibitions in New York City, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and throughout New England.

Recent exhibitions of his work were at:
George Marshall Store Gallery, York, ME
Oxbow Gallery, Northampton, MA
Merrimack College, MA
University of New Hampshire Art Museum

Brian Chu – Paintings and Drawings


Peter Cady

Peter Cady grew up on the coast of New Hampshire. His study of painting began as a boy observing painters with their easels overlooking the ocean. He studied civil engineering but found he was drawn to things artistic and to working with his hands. After college, he worked in construction and learned fine woodworking. He still lives in the timber framed house he built from his trees. His furniture making started to incorporate color and a variety of materials, evolving into sculpture. After a second career of teaching science to middle school students, he returned to the arts. He ahs gotten to know and learn from many fine painters like the ones in this group.

Peter Cady

@pcadycreates


Tom Glover

Tom Glover was born in Keene, NH. He graduated with a BFA degree in painting at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, and worked closely with the Maine painter John Laurent up until Laurent’s death in 2005. He studied painting restoration with the conservator Anthony Moore in York, Maine. For several years he lectured at the University of Connecticut to science education graduate students on “The Landscape, Mythology, and the Artist.” He has also taught painting at the UNH Department of Continuing Education, and at workshops on the Isles of Shoals. Currently, he teaches painting at Sanctuary Arts in Eliot, Maine.

Tom Glover

Tom Glover

@tomgloverart

Coming October 1: “Abstracting the Seacoast”

Coming October 1: “Abstracting the Seacoast”

Five Local Painters’ Explore Our Landscape

Opening October 1, Tom Glover, Peter Cady, Brian Chu, Dustan Knight, and Barbara Adams will share work created over the past two years. They worked together to find new ways of portraying their appreciation for this unique costal area in five highly individual styles.


Cady, Peter. Offshore No. 3. Painted papers collage on paper, 24 x 18 inches.

Chu, Brian. Orange Sign Car. Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches.

Glover, Tom. Pile of Traps. Mixed media, 7¾ x 10 inches.

Knight, Dustan. Waterfront Evening. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches.

Adams, Barbara. Portsmouth Waterfront, oil; 18 x 24 inches.

Red Dot Sale in the Museum Shop!

We’re getting ready for the fall, and to clear space there’s a sale, with a twist! Find the red dots and get a discount at checkout! Happy hunting!


John Paul Jones House Closing for the Season Soon!

With the exception of Veterans Day, the last day the John Paul Jones House is open to the public before we button up for winter is Monday, October 11. Stop by and see “Portsmouth Treasures” before it’s too late.


History. Arts. Culture.


NH Now: A Photographic Diary of Life in the Granite State

NH Now: A Photographic Diary of Life in the Granite State

The Portsmouth Historical Society presents a panel discussion exploring the New Hampshire Now exhibition with art historian Inez McDermott and photographers Dan Gingras, Michael Sterling, and Gary Samson. The panel will discuss the role of the documentary photography project throughout American history and its potential to make change as they make connections with the images and themes found in the exhibition.

Thursday, December 9, 2021 at 6:00 pm

In-person and via Zoom

Tickets are FREE


Dan Gingras

Dan Gingras started his photographic career as a newspaper photographer for seven years before earning a master’s and doctoral degrees in computer science. His fifty-year love of photography and technology merged, as photography became digital and as computers became integral to composition and imaging.

🌐 Dan Gingras @captdang

Inez McDermott

Inez McDermott has been a professor of Art History at New England College since 2000. In her courses she encourages students to examine the role of art in public life and to discover the ways in which the creative process can play a role in social engagement, participatory democracy, and activism. Inez’ research interests focus on historical and contemporary New Hampshire art and artists with a particular interest in 19th century photography. She has also curated major exhibitions at museums in the region, including A House of Dreams Untold, the story of the MacDowell Colony, at the New Hampshire Historical Society in 1996, and, most recently as a co-curator of Mount Washington, The Crown of New England, (2017) at the Currier Museum in Manchester, NH. Inez has served on statewide arts and humanities boards in the state, and currently serves as a board member for the Saint-Gaudens’ Memorial, which supports the work of the only national park dedicated to an artist, in Cornish, NH.

Gary Samson

Gary Samson has been a fine art photographer and educator for forty years. His work has been exhibited in Europe and Canada, as well as in the United States, and can be found in numerous collections including the Library of Congress and the Currier Museum of Art. In 2017, Gary was appointed the seventh Artist Laureate of New Hampshire and Professor Emeritus of Photography by the Institute of Art and Design at New England College

🌐 Gary Samson Photography @gary.samson1

Michael Sterling

Michael Sterling is immediate past president of the New Hampshire Society of Photographic Artists and a contributing photographer for a number of local magazines, newspapers, and nonprofits. Sterling’s work is represented in the permanent collections of the Exeter Chamber of Commerce and Cambridge Trust and was exhibited in Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s Experience New Hampshire event in Washington, DC. Artistic interests include architecture and historic interiors, cityscapes, and environmental portraiture.

🌐 Michael Sterling Photography


This panel discussion has been made possible by a generous grant by the New Hampshire Humanities.

New Hampshire Humanities nurtures the joy of learning and inspires community engagement by bringing life-enhancing ideas from the humanities to the people of New Hampshire. They connect people with ideas. Learn more at www.nhhumanities.org.

New Hampshire Now: A Photographic Diary of Life in the Granite State

October 1, 2021–December 23, 2021

Opening reception October 1, 2021, 5:30pm

New Hampshire Now is a two-year project to photographically record life in New Hampshire. Nearly 50 photographers traveled throughout the state between 2018 and 2020, making thousands of images that collectively create a twenty-first-century portrait of the people, places, culture, and events in New Hampshire. This project documents contemporary life in our state, in much the same way that photography projects of the past have done, such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange during the Great Depression and Lewis Hines when he visited the mills of Manchester in the early 1900s. The thousands of images created during this project form a powerful visual archive of both the ordinary and extraordinary events of our time.

Organized by the New Hampshire Society of Photographic Artists and the New Hampshire Historical Society, eight exhibitions held in the seven regions of the state will all open simultaneously on October 1, 2021. Each exhibition will display photographs unique to that region of the state, while the flagship exhibition at the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord will display images that represent the state as a whole. Each organization is determining how long the exhibition will be open at their facility, so everyone’s closing date will be different.

Exhibition Locations

Belknap Mill Society, Laconia

Colby Sawyer College, New London

Portsmouth Historical Society, Portsmouth

Historical Society of Cheshire County, Keene

Manchester Historic Association, Manchester

Museum of the White Mountains, Plymouth

New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord

Tillotson Center, Colebrook


Exhibition Sponsors

This ambitious project has been made possible thanks to the generous support of our corporate sponsor, New Hampshire Mutual Bancorp, and its affiliates (NH Trust, Meredith Village Savings Bank, Merrimack County Savings Bank, and the Savings Bank of Walpole), along with Monadnock Paper Mills, Puritan Press, and Red River Paper, with support from Kimball Jenkins School of Art. Additional support for the publication was provided by Furthermore, a J. M. Kaplan Fund.

The Book

The book New Hampshire Now features more than 250 images from the project. It will be available for sale at each of the exhibitions and at many independent bookstores around the state. The book is a New Hampshire product, published by Peter Randall Publishers and printed by Puritan Press on paper from Monadnock Paper Mills and Red River Paper.

The book includes forewords by Bill Dunlap and Project Director Gary Samson and an introduction by beloved New Hampshire author Howard Mansfield.


Final Days!

Final Days!

This is your very last chance to see our amazing exhibitions, “Twilight of American Impressionism” and “Don Gorvett: Working Waterfronts” before they close THIS SUNDAY, 9/12, at 5pm!


New Hampshire Now:
A Photographic Diary of Life in the Granite State

Opening October 1 at eight locations across, “New Hampshire Now: A Photographic Diary of the Granite State”! This project, spearheaded by the New Hampshire Historical Society and the New Hampshire Society of Photographic Artists, features work by fifty professional photographers who were told to document the state of NH… and what a year 2020 turned out to be for photos!

Portsmouth Historical Society is thrilled to be the location for the Seacoast, but everyone should try and visit the other locations, as the photos will be unique for each.

PLUS: PREORDER THE CATALOGUE NOW! This gorgeous, 288-page book is available for preorder at the Museum Shop, and is a total steal at only $49.95! We’ll only have 100 copies to sell, so reserve yours now!


Save the Date! Gingerbread is Coming!

t’s hard to believe, but the holiday season will be here before you know it! This year, the exhibition will open November 26, the day after Thanksgiving.

This year our theme is favorite New Hampshire things! To go along with the upcoming exhibition “NH Now,” we’re asking you to create what you love about NH in gingerbread form.

Registration will be open soon, so start thinking about your sweet creations!


Red Dot Sale at the Museum Shop

The galleries will be closed to the public from 9/13 through 9/30 while we change exhibitions, but you can still come into the Welcome Center and Museum Shop!

Shop manager Beth Gross-Santos has put together a fun red dot sale! No hints on where to find the dots, but when you do, it’s a 50% discount! If we’re already thinking about the Gingerbread House Contest, it’s not too early to think about…holiday shopping!


History. Arts. Culture.


Zoom Lecture for “Twilight”

Many of you received postcards for a end-of-season “Members Only” reception. Shortly after mailing, the COVID situation changed, and we had to adjust our expectations for this event. We felt it was important to proceed with caution by limiting attendance and not serving any food. However, because we couldn’t have the celebration we hoped for, we are also going to broadcast the lecture by Zoom! 

Members: Check inbox your soon for a link to get tickets to a virtual lecture!

Not a member yet? Sign up here!

Join us for a toast to celebrate the concluding days of our extraordinary summer exhibitions, “Twilight of American Impressionism” and “Working Waterfronts” and to inaugurate the William & Arlene Brewster Lecture Series!

September 9, 2021 5:30pm
Lecture by guest curator William Brewster Jr.


Support for this event is provided by Lynne Joyce of Tate & Foss Sotheby’s International Realty.


Young Writers Contest Extended!

The Young Writers Contest has been extended! Submissions are now due by midnight on Monday, September 13. We’ve got some great prizes to offer from our sponsors, Summer Sessions and Flatbread Co!

Full details at www.portsmouthhistory.org/young-writers

Get to the exhibitions before they close on September 12! 


Morning Mixer at PHS

As a member of the Chamber Collaborative of Greater Portsmouth, we get to do cool things like host the Morning Mixer!

The Chamber is a wonderful resource for all greater Portsmouth businesses, and it was fun to get to see some of our fellow members and have a cup of coffee with them. Thanks for stopping by!


History. Arts. Culture.