FRYEBURG — It was a gift that changed at least two lives.

When the painter William Kienbusch died in 1980, he left his house on Great Cranberry Island off Mount Desert to his nephews, Carl and David Little.

“David was a painter and I was a writer,” Carl Little said. “He said, ‘You guys ought to have a place to do that.’ For David and me, the island has been a muse, and Bill has been a guiding spirit for both of us.”

And so the white, two-story clapboard house that provided Kienbusch years of solitude, inspiration and grounding was passed from one generation to the next. It remains in the family, Carl Little having recently purchased his brother’s share.

This fall, the Pace Galleries at Fryeburg Academy focus on the family’s artistic lineage with “The Kienbusch Legacy: A Family of Artists.” The exhibition, on view through Oct. 31, includes several Kienbusch abstract-expressionist paintings, as well as landscapes by David Little and examples of Carl Little’s writing, along with paintings by Kienbusch’s sisters, Millicent Clarke Kelley and the Littles’ mother, Juliana Patience Little.

Carl and David Little live in Maine, Carl in Somesville and David in Portland. Both moved to Maine from New York soon after the house passed from their uncle to them, and both have used Maine as inspiration for their work, just as their uncle did.

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“The idea of families of painters or families that are creative really fascinates me,” said Pace Galleries director John Day. “It raises the question about where creativity comes from.”

He cited two high-profile Maine examples: three generations of Wyeths, as well as William and Marguerite Zorach and their daughter, the painter Dahlov Ipcar. The Kienbusch family legacy is less well known.

Day became familiar with Kienbusch at Frost Gully Gallery in Freeport, which has shown the artist since 1970. He was attracted by Kienbusch’s tough, abstract-expressionist works, which are full of color and gesture.

He also was familiar with the paintings of David Little, who had a Monhegan Artists’ Residency in 1998. A collector, Day specializes in the art of Monhegan.

COMMON DENOMINATOR

Even though the paintings of Kienbusch and Little are vastly different, their connection provided Day a theme for the show. A follow-up conversation with Carl and David Little revealed that their mother and aunt also painted.

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The Little brothers took over from there. They curated the show, tapping family resources to bring it together.

The brothers had most of the art in their possession, which meant two things: It made it convenient to assemble the paintings, and most of this work has rarely been seen outside family homes.

The show includes a dozen Kienbusch paintings, 17 from David Little, several books and poems by Carl Little, and a handful of paintings from the brothers’ mother and aunt.

The show opens with several floral paintings by Juliana Patience Little. They are big, bright and colorful, and Day hung them near the gallery entrance to draw people in. A small sampling of their aunt’s work is mixed among them.

The Kienbusch work, which is more challenging, is in the second of three galleries.

Critic Edgar Allen Beem once described Kienbusch’s paintings as “poetic abstractions.” They are moody, excited responses to nature and the environment, suggesting the movement of water, the effect of the wind and the ruggedness of the natural world.

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Kienbusch was a prolific and accomplished painter, with work in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

All but two paintings in this show are from the family. One is a loan from the University of Maine at Machias, the other from longtime Kienbusch friend and admirer Norma Marin. She is the daughter-in-law of the late painter John Marin, whom Kienbusch befriended. After John Marin died in 1953, Kienbusch maintained his friendship with Norma and her late husband, John Jr.

He often left his island home for a visit to their home at Cape Split in Down East Maine, usually in September after the tourists left and before he returned to New York, Norma Marin said.

He would bring ingredients to cook his favorite meal, chicken Parmesan, and a bottle of good vodka. And a camera.

“He would wait to visit until everything was quiet,” she said. “It was a good time for him to go out and about. He would take photographs all around, He was interested in shapes and forms.”

Marin can sense the ocean in Kienbusch’s work.

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“There was a strength in his work that I always loved so much,” she said, remembering him as a “strong and burly kind of guy. We’d sit on the porch, and he’d look out over the bay and to the islands, and he got a great deal of inspiration just being there.”

Her loan to this show is a casein painting from 1962 called “Black Ocean, Sea Grass.”

“To my knowledge, he never painted any pretty pictures,” she said. “His work was really quite tough. You didn’t get off easy as a viewer. I know he admired (Marin), and he talked a lot about (Marsden) Hartley. I think he associated himself as a person a lot with Hartley.”

Among the artists she has met and known, Marin said Kienbusch is near the top of her list. She purchased her first Kienbusch painting in New York before she knew him and has always hung his paintings in her homes.

Kienbusch was born in New York City in 1914. He came to Maine in the 1930s and bought his modest home on Great Cranberry Island in 1967.

By that time, Kienbusch had national stature, and Maine offered him the chance to get away. “Maine was where he did his work,” David Little said. “It was not a vacation home.”

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Little remembers driving with his uncle up to Maine, “blasting out of New York on old Route 1.”

During those drives the two talked about art, and David Little is certain those conversations led to his own interest in painting. Nearly all of his works in this show are from his own collection, and they include mostly landscapes from a variety of locales, but only one from Great Cranberry Island. It’s an oil painting of fading rosa rugosa, with yellowing leaves.

“To me, it’s about the end of the season,” he said.

Carl Little is represented in the show with many of the books he has written, mostly about Maine art. He, too, said he would likely not have pursued writing about art had his uncle not inspired him. “As soon he realized I was interested, he encouraged me,” he said.

For the Little brothers, the highlight of the Fryeburg exhibition is the chance to show the work of their mother. She was a serious artist and a good painter in her own right, but never exhibited her work.

Juliana Patience Little died two years ago.

“We only wish mom’s first show could have happened in her lifetime,” Carl Little said.


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