artwork

Landscapes

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Jamaica. Watercolor on paper.

Polly Thayer (Starr) Landscapes

As a student, Thayer had given most of her attention to portraits and figure painting. As she turned to painting landscapes, she became fascinated by the interplay of intimate detail and vast generality she witnessed in nature, and investigated their relationship in paint, pencil, pen, and charcoal from that time forward. Her landscapes include South Shore marsh scenes near the family’s summer home in Hingham, Massachusetts, cityscapes of Boston’s Back Bay, various Caribbean island sea and landscapes, and tableaux of North Shore granite.

I walked about perfectly rapt the colours are so wonderful. There seems to be light behind, inside every object that deprives it of all semblance of weight and makes it ecstatically insubstantial. Do you remember these houses, Muff, these combinations that make Van Gogh seem literal-minded, greys and hennas and pinks on reds? Truly they are glorious.

~ Polly Thayer (Starr) to Donald Starr, Nassau, 1936

After the Blizzard. Mixed media on paper. Private Collection.

I should know by now about blizzards. How often have I been impressed by a “howler,” talked about it over the telephone with friends, sharing radio warnings and hugging the safety of the house, and then, as the day wore on, deciding to hazard venturing out for one reason or another and finding it highly exhilarating and physically stimulating and beautiful.”

~ Polly Thayer (Starr), Journal, 1991

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