NORMAN BEAUPRE

PORTLAND — Lois Dodd is best known for painting the world around her, from her apartment windows in New York City to the woods and gardens of Maine and New Jersey. The Portland Museum of Art opens a new exhibition, “Lois Dodd: Catching the Light,” next week that explores the career of the painter and […]

Even with Oscar nominees, movie goers seem more and more to be leaving the theater confused and/or frustrated.

Whatever you think of Tom Cruise, you know he’s not 6-feet-5, well over 200 pounds — which is the way author Lee Child describes his crime-solving/ justice-dispensing ex-military policeman, Jack Reacher. But even if Cruise isn’t as physically imposing as the guy, he can still bring the intimidation, as he proves in “Jack Reacher.” Cruise […]

A party and charity auction mark the mounting of ‘Fix the Shadows,’ a photography exhibit celebrating surfing and stillness in Maine.

Winslow Homer’s psychological complexity and propensity to color outside the lines help place him as the quintessential American artist. Homer makes us all look good. While Jackson Pollock brawled and brooded his way through stardom to self-destruction at a critical moment on a stage not of his making, Homer’s genius didn’t get by the rest […]

Art “Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine,” 35 major oils and watercolors, Portland Museum of Art. portlandmuseum.org. Ends Sunday. “Between Past and Present: The Homer Studio Photographic Project,” contemporary photography made with historic processes, Portland Museum of Art. portlandmuseum.org. Through Feb. 17. “The Portland Society of Art and Winslow Homer’s Legacy in Maine,” exploring the artistic […]

How does one begin to describe “From Guiding Lights to Beacons for Business: The Many Lives of Maine’s Lighthouses” with its myriad dazzle and deep content? Perhaps as a happily over-stuffed scrapbook of ephemera enfolding chapter-essays by 10 of the region’s finest, most articulate scholars. Whatever one decides to call it, “From Guiding Lights” is […]