With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Lars Thorsen
Painting/Drawing
1876 – 1952
WPA artist Lars Thorsen was a locally prominent Regionalist painter, capturing images of the sailing ships as they were being replaced by motorized shipping, much as other Regionalists portrayed the decline of agricultural landscape and buildings. Though his artwork was exhibited in Hartford, he was primarily based in southeastern Connecticut.
- Biography/Description of Work
A sailor and an immigrant from Norway, Thorsen settled in the village of Noank c.1904. He had spent a life at sea, including five trips around Cape Horn, and as crew on the Columbia, an America’s Cup yacht designed by Nathaniel G. Herreshoff. In Noank he worked as a rigger and sailed fishing boats to the Grand Banks. He had taught himself to paint while at sea, and now was able to continue painting during the winter seasons. Thorsen had married in 1900 while at home in Norway, and by 1906 his wife and daughter had joined him in Noank. Thorsen became known for his marine paintings. He exhibited locally and at the Wadsworth Atheneum in the late 1920s and won the Bunce Prize from the Connecticut of Academy of Fine Arts in 1937. He began working for the WPA Federal Arts Project in 1939, completing 81 works, many allocated to schools and to state hospitals and other institutions. In later years, paintings were commissioned by the Mariners Savings Bank (a series of murals are now at Mystic Seaport) and by the Ram Island Yacht Club, located on Front Street across from the Thorsen house. His work is allied with Regionalism, the figurative art including images of urban social realism and the decline of rural landscapes and buildings in the industrial period. Thorsen painted portraits of historic sailing ships from the late nineteenth century, scenes of sailing ships and fishing fleets still in active use in the early twentieth century, and views of the gritty working waterfront of Noank. Thorsen’s home was located in the midst of the maritime activity that was his subject matter.
- Sources view
- Mary Anderson, Noank Historical Society http://wpa.cslib.org/index.php/563/thorsen-lars/ WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; AskART; Who Was Who In American Art (1985), p. 623; Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters (1986), 937; East Side Area Antiques, Lars Thorsen, pp. 9-10 of 12 at http://www.eastsideartandantiques.com/American-Paintings/american-paintings.htm; Photo Standalone 25, Hartford Courant, June 6, 1926; “Sea’s Spirit Is Captured By Thorsen,” Hartford Courant, March 17, 1927; “Mystic Museum to Show Work of Lars Thorsen,” Hartford Courant, April 17, 1945; Donald Smith, “New Mecca for Connecticut’s Artists [Noank],” Hartford Courant, August 3, 1947.
- Associated Resource(s)