Lasting Impression

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These days, you never know whom you're going to see in Bangor, Maine. Pablo Picasso. Käthe Kollwitz. Winslow Homer.

That's because nearly two years ago, the University of Maine Museum of Art went downtown. The move by the 58-year-old museum from the Orono campus to Bangor provided an opportunity to increase educational outreach and become a greater catalyst in Maine's creative economy. In its larger, state-of-the-art exhibit area in historic Norumbega Hall, the contemporary art museum, directed by Wally Mason, now hosts more nationally recognized and permanent collection exhibits than ever before.

The University of Maine Art Collection was established by the late Vincent Hartgen in 1946. Early on, it included works, primarily on paper, by such artists as John James Audubon, Edward Hopper and James M. Whistler.

Today, this is the only museum owned by the citizens of Maine that houses a permanent fine arts collection. In the permanent collection are more than 5,700 works by such masters as Georges Braque, Mary Cassatt and George Inness. Also represented are such Maine artists as Berenice Abbott, John Marin and Andrew Wyeth.