Emily Oberman with her parents, Arline Simon, bottom left, and Marvin Oberman, right. Photo courtesy of Emily Oberman
In the years following World War II, four artist couples from New York City decided separately to visit Monhegan Island in Maine.
They were Reuben and Geraldine Tam, Marvin Oberman and Arline Simon, Jan and William McCartin, and John Hultberg and Lynne Drexler. Their work was vastly different – from precise botanical illustrations to sweeping landscapes to bright abstract paintings – but they all found inspiration on the island.
They also influenced each other and Monhegan itself. The island had been attracting artists for a century already, and the four couples joined and fostered a community that still exists there today.
“It feels like an art colony, Monhegan, and it’s because of those people,” said Ed Deci, who was the director of the museum for 36 years before he announced his retirement in 2019, and knew the artists personally. “There’s probably not a house on the island that doesn’t have at least one painting hanging in it, and several of them have quite a few. It’s fishing and art. That’s what Monhegan is.”
This summer, the Monhegan Museum of Art & History will host an exhibition of 63 works by the eight artists, who have all died. The show explores the relationships between the work of these friends, partners and neighbors.
“There’s a tendency to think of artists as individuals, and artists are often the focus of a solo exhibition,” said Emily Grey, who curated the exhibition and wrote an accompanying essay about the artists. “Their work is hanging alone in the gallery. They might participate in a group show. (These couples) were impacted by each other’s presence and each other’s work. You really do see that once the works are hung side by side.”
The couples returned for years to the island 10 miles off the Midcoast, buying homes on the island and visiting each other’s studios. During that time, artists started organizing and posting a list of studio hours, a resource for visitors that also helped avoid scheduling conflicts. (That system continues, said Grey.) In those days, island homes did not have private phones, so neighbors just dropped in on each other to say hello. They went on sketching expeditions around the island. They gathered for dinner parties and listened to music together.
Emily Oberman, the daughter of Arline Simon and Marvin Oberman, said her parents found mentors and friends on the island who shared their creative spirit.
“Smutty Nose, Monhegan 3 Times” (n.d.) by Arline Simon. Collection of Emily Oberman.
“It was about the art, but it was also about the community,” she said. “It was also about the humor. It was also about the joy of being on an island, of the people who were there.”
Oberman, who now lives in New Jersey, grew up spending her summers on Monhegan. In the studio next to their home, her mother would paint during the day and her father would paint at night. She said she is thrilled about the show that will feature her parents and their best friends, and she moved up her own annual trip to the island to attend the opening this weekend.
“Now that my parents aren’t alive, being on the island is the closest thing I have to having them back,” Oberman added. “Because of their art and because of their presence.”
The Monhegan Museum has a policy of only showing the work of deceased artists in order to avoid choosing between those living and working on the island. But many residents knew and still remember these artists, who returned for decades and became involved in island institutions.
Jennifer Pye, the museum’s director and chief curator, said John Hultberg served on its building and grounds committee, and Marvin Oberman designed the logo it still uses today. Arline Simon founded a group for woman artists on the island. Lynne Drexler became a year-round resident for 16 years and died there in 1999.
“All of these people, they didn’t just come here,” said Pye. “They really were a part of the island.”
Reuben and Geraldine Tam, circa 1950. Courtesy of the Monhegan Museum of Art & History.
Geraldine King Tam (1920-2016) and Reuben Tam (1916-1991)
“New England Aster, Aster novae-angliae” (n.d.) by Geraldine Tam. Courtesy of the Monhegan Museum of Art & History, gift of Cindy King.
In art school in Hawaii, Reuben Tam saw prints of Rockwell Kent’s paintings of Monhegan and decided to visit the place himself. In 1948, he was working as an artist in New York City when he met Geraldine “Gerry” King, then an art student at Columbia University. They married two weeks later and then spent their first summer on Monhegan. On the island, they hosted dinner parties where they would play the guitar, ukulele or recorder for their guests.
She made meticulous botanical paintings, while he preferred minimalist abstract landscapes. But Grey noted that both were deeply inspired by nature, and their work represents their individual observations from their walks together on Monhegan’s trails.
“Together, they are creating a whole picture of the experience of being on the island,” she said.
The Tams visited Monhegan for 30 years before they moved in 1980 to Kauai, where Reuben Tam was born. He once wrote about his conflict between his two beloved islands: “How I am torn apart by place! There is Monhegan, the complete place where my stars are, and the ocean, and the salt wind. And that acre on Kauai, and the island itself, mountains and the sea, the gentle air … Where to live? How to divide one’s time between places?”
Gerry Tam’s family recently donated more than 200 botanical paintings and 500 sketches to the museum’s permanent collection, including the works that will be shown in this exhibition.
Arline Simon and Marvin Oberman, 1991. Photo by Alan Weisenfeld. Courtesy of the Monhegan Museum of Art & History.
Marvin Oberman (1927–2018) and Arline Simon (1927–2020)
Arline Simon and Marvin “Moe” Oberman were also newlyweds in 1950 when they visited Monhegan for the first time with former classmates from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City. Emily Oberman said they were sitting on their front stoop when their friends pulled up and asked if they wanted to visit a little island in Maine. They ran upstairs, packed a bag “and never looked back,” their daughter said.
“Sunset August 20th, Fanfare for Whitecaps” (n.d) by Marvin Oberman. Collection of Emily Oberman.
They developed deep ties to the island and spent nearly 70 summers there. Emily Oberman said Monhegan appeared in her mother’s abstract landscapes even when she was painting at home in New York, and her father focused more on design projects but was inspired to paint the sunsets from their home on Horn’s Hill. Oberman also created posters and other materials for island institutions, including the museum. Both graphic designers, they often signed their collaborative work “AMO.” (Emily Oberman is also a graphic designer. “The family business,” she calls it.)
Grey noted their similar brushstrokes and bright palettes.
“You can also see that there was a way in which they were picking up on what the other person was thinking about,” she said.
Jan McCartin, 1991. Photo by Alan Weisenfeld. Courtesy of Monhegan Museum of Art & History.
Jan McCartin (1909-2002) and William McCartin (1905-2003)
Grey wrote in her essay that Jan McCartin wrote to the “Monhegan Chamber of Commerce” when she first learned about the island. Such an organization did not exist, but she got a response from the island postmistress, who suggested they stay at her hotel. Jan and Bill McCartin did so when they first visited in 1955.
Bill McCartin, 1991. Photo by Alan Weisenfeld. Courtesy of Monhegan Museum of Art & History.
They found many artists they knew on the island and met new friends. They visited for 30 years and bought a home on Lobster Cove, where they shared open studio hours.
Grey said the couple talked about how they influenced one another, even though their art was vastly different. Bill McCartin did mostly abstract work, while Jan McCartin had a more representational style. But Grey said Jan McCartin would often frame still-life compositions with a window and described her husband’s paintings as also having openings for light. A critic once described Bill McCartin’s paintings as creating “a window to the world.”
“When you see them side by side, it’s really quite extraordinary,” said Grey. “This is what the show allows you to see.”
Lynne Drexler and John Hultberg in a photo first published in the Maine Times on Sept. 14, 1984. Courtesy of the Monhegan Museum of Art & History.
Lynne Drexler (1928-1999) and John Hultberg (1922-2005)
Lynne Drexler and John Hultberg started coming to the island in the 1960s. It became a home base as they traveled widely for their work.
“Tree of Age” (1981) by Lynne Drexler. Courtesy of Monhegan Museum of Art & History, gift of Harry T. Bone and William and Barbara Manning.
They quickly made friends with the other couples. Grey wrote that Drexler credited the McCartins with getting her into the Alonzo Gallery in New York, and Hultberg wrote about Reuben Tam in his journal in 1963: “Reuben Tam walked over to visit us last year when our house was being fixed up … and took out some seeds that he cast out on the weeds. This year we have lupines …. Why did I come to Monhegan if not because of people like him?”
In the 1980s, the couple could not afford to live in New York and moved to Monhegan full time. After that first winter, Hultberg returned to New York and only visited Monhegan in the summers. Drexler stayed and made a permanent home on the island.
Grey said his work was more somber, while hers had a brighter palette. But their home was near woodland trails that inspired them both.
“They are both responding to the place that they lived,” said Grey. “And even though they were very different, there’s plenty of connections.”
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