Farnsworth Art Museum

The Farnsworth is Rockland's unexpected trump card — a genuinely serious art museum for a small harbor town, with one of the best collections of American art focused on New England anywhere in the country. Three generations of the Wyeth family are the centerpiece: N.C. Wyeth's vigorous illustrations, Andrew's quiet and unsettling temperas and watercolors, and Jamie Wyeth's contemporary portraits.

The attached Wyeth Center, in a converted church, houses rotating exhibitions from the family's archives and makes the case for why this dynasty matters. The museum's permanent collection also includes Homer, Bellows, Hopper, and Sargent, along with a strong representation of Maine-connected artists from the nineteenth century onward. Plan at least two hours.

things to do museum art
A story
Andrew Wyeth painted "Christina's World" in 1948, showing a woman dragging herself across a Maine field toward a distant farmhouse. The woman was Christina Olson, who could not walk due to a degenerative muscle condition. The Olson House, ten miles from Rockland in Cushing, is preserved and open to visitors — standing in the field where Wyeth painted it makes the famous image suddenly, unexpectedly moving.