Emily Nelligan 1924 – 2018
Emily Nelligan, 16 Oct 03 (2) , 2003, charcoal on paper, 7 1/4 x 10 1/2 inches
Emily Nelligan, 15 Oct 01 (2) , 2001, charcoal on paper, 7 1/4 x 10 1/2 inches
For over sixty years Emily’s primary muse and subject was the shore, water and sky of Great Cranberry Island off Mount Desert in summer and early fall. Using charcoal and erasure, she created lyrical drawings that masterfully balanced representation and abstraction, capturing a life’s worth of emotion on 7 x 10 inch sheets of laid writer’s paper. Dusk was a favorite time of day, where twilight softens forms, edges erode, and weather and light can dramatically change. Exhibiting her work was of little importance to Emily. She considered art sacred and thought the buying and selling of it heartbreaking. In 2000 at the age of 76 her work became known nationally when 26 examples were exhibited at Bowdoin College Museum of Art. A  Times  Arts & Leisure article ran on the occasion of that show describing Emily’s drawings as “sudden windows: instants of light and air translated into black and white.” The piece concluded, “If Ms. Nelligan’s subject is the moment in its infinite variability, she also draws permanence: a summer place apart from chronology, where time is measured by seasons, tides and changing light.”

The New York Times:  A Landscape That Carries a Life's Worth of Emotion by Deborah Weisgall
Emily Nelligan , 10 July 87 , 1987, charcoal on paper, 7 1/4 x 10 1/2 inches
Emily died peacefully of natural causes at the age of 94. She was predeceased by her beloved husband Marvin Bileck, artist, illustrator and teacher. Among public institutions, significant holdings of her drawings are in the collections of Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Colby College Museum of Art and the Morgan Library. A memorial exhibition will be held at the gallery in the spring.
Emily Nelligan, 29.9.06 , 2006, charcoal on paper, 7 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches
The New York Observer:  A Maine Island Inspires Two Very Different Artists  by Hilton Kramer
Lois Dodd, Portrait of Emily Nelligan , 1988, oil on Masonite, 19 1/2 x 15 3/4 inches
Currently on view at the gallery:

John Marin, Cape Split , 1940, oil on canvas, 22 x 28 inches