Neil Welliver, Marsh Shadow, 1984, oil on canvas, 96 x 96 inches
Neil Welliver
Open Thursdays through Sundays, 12 – 5 pm
Alexandre at 162 Russell Avenue, Rockport, ME 04856 - in the former CMCA building
July 3 – August 10, 2025
Alexandre Gallery is thrilled to present an exhibition of works by the celebrated chronicler of the Maine wilderness, Neil Welliver. This presentation marks the first significant showing of the artist’s major landscape paintings since a 2001 exhibition organized by the Ogunquit Museum of Art and is the gallery’s first seasonal pop-up in Maine.
Best known for his vivid landscape paintings and woodcuts of the Maine wilderness, Neil Welliver lived in Maine for over three decades, settling MidCoast amidst a community of observational and representational artists including Rudy Burckhardt, Lois Dodd, and Alex Katz, among many others. During this prolific period of artistic dialogue, Welliver commuted to teach painting, first at Yale University—where he studied under Josef Albers—and later at University of Pennsylvania, where he chaired the Graduate Program in Fine Art until 1989.
Drawing inspiration from the innate abstraction of natural landscapes, he often carried his painting supplies into remote areas, painting plein air for hours at a time. In the last decade of his life, Welliver shifted his painterly focus to subjects beyond the scope of his 1,600-acre Lincolnville property, often retreating to Allagash during the summers. Welliver translated the resulting oil studies he created in the field, by streams and within forests, into large studio paintings measuring up to eight feet square. As Poet Laureate Mark Strand wrote of Neil Welliver’s practice in 1997:
“Welliver’s marks—those sweeps and touches of paint that describe trunks, branches, clouds, water, foam, everything, with disarming rightness, are his signature, one that bears the burden of dual representation, revealing a self in nature, and the nature of a self. It embodies as it describes, generates as it concludes. It is Welliver; it is also Welliver’s woods.”
The exhibition unites a group of the Welliver’s large scale landscape paintings, woodcut prints, and aquatints spanning four decades. In addition, the presentation will also feature a selection of paintings and works on paper by gallery artists with Maine connections. Alexandre Gallery began representing Neil Welliver during his lifetime in 1998 and continues to represent his estate and widow to this day.
Olivia with Raised Arms, 1967, oil on canvas, 42 x 38 inches
Big Flowage, 1979, oil on canvas, 96 x 96 inches
Marsh Shadow, 1984, oil on canvas, 96 x 96 inches
Old Avalanche, 1982, oil on canvas, 96 x 96 inches
Study For Untitled Stream in Brigg's Meadow, c. 1970-1975, oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches
Study for Orange Brook, 1985, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches
Drowned Tree, 1983, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches
Beaver Dam, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches
Untitled (Dead Tree), 1976, oil on linen, 14 x 9 inches
Cascade, 1974, oil on canvas, 96 x 96 inches
Flotsam Allagash, 1988, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches
Salt Flat, 1973, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches
From Zeke's, 1974, oil on canvas, 72 x 96 inches
Winter Stream, oil on canvas, 16 x 16 inches
Untitled (Figure with Man), 1964, watercolor and graphite on paper, 11 1/4 x 8 1/2 inches
Untitled (Nude), watercolor on paper, 22 x 17 inches
Untitled (Floating Nude), 1960s, graphite and watercolor on paper, 17 x 22 inches
Untitled (Nude in Water), 1960s, graphite and watercolor on paper, 17 x 22 inches
Birches, 2005, aquatint on Rives BFK, 25 x 22 inches
Synthetic Blue – St. John, 2000, aquatint and etching on Fabriano Tiepolo, 18 x 18 inches
St. John – Winter, 2000, aquatint and etching on Fabriano Tiepolo, 18 x 18 inches
Stump, 2000, woodcut on Nishinouchi, 35 x 34 inches
Flotsam Allagash, 1995, woodcut on Kizuki Nishinouchi, 30 x 30 inches
Islands Allagash, 1990, woodcut, 31 1/4 x 32 1/2 inches
Little Marsh, 1985 - 86, woodcut on Kizuki Nishinouchi paper, 34 3/4 x 35 inches
Birches, 1982-1983, Woodcut on Kizuki Nishinouchi, 29 1/2 x 30 1/2 inches
Osprey's Nest, 1979-80, woodcut on Kizuki Sarashi Hanga, 29 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches
Big Flowage, 1979, woodcut on Torinoko, 18 x 18 inches
Big Flowage, 1979, woodcut on Kizuki Nishinouchi, 17 x 18 inches
From Zeke's, 1976, lithograph on Arches Cover, 18 x 26 inches
Reflected Nude, 1974, hand-colored lithograph on Arches, 24 x 24 inches
Winter Rainbow, 1983, aquatint and etching on Arches Cover, 17 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches
Winter Rainbow, 1983, etching on Arches White, 17 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches
Two Trout & Reflections, 1994, hand-colored etching on Arches Cover, 15 3/4 x 17 3/4 inches
Smelts, 1977, etching on Arches White, 15 3/4 x 17 3/4 inches
Reflected Nude, 1974, etching on Arches White, 24 x 24 inches
Northern Lights, 1987, aquatint on Dieu Donné Handmade, 5 x 6 inches
Deer, 1988, aquatint and etching on Arches White, 8 1/4 x 6 inches
Black Bear, 1988, aquatint and etching on Arches Cover, 8 1/4 x 6 inches (image)
