Putting history to canvas

June Casagrande

Like most maritime artists, John Stobart’s works explore serene

waters, majestic ships and picturesque ports of call. But unlike for

other artists, most of Stobart’s subjects disappeared long before

Stobart was born and long before the advent of photography could

preserve their beauty for posterity.

Stobart, who has an exhibit at the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum,

is known as a master of depicting ports from bygone eras, mostly the

1800s. Without any photographs or visual experiences to work from,

Stobart has also become a master researcher, using historical

documents to piece together his visual history of how ports might

have looked more than a century ago.

“We have rooms of research that he’s accumulated,” said Sandra

Heaphy, business manager for the artist and for the Boston-based

Stobart Galleries. “He goes to historical. He also does a lot of

interviews with people who are experts at what ship traveled where

and when. He’s very thorough.”

Stobart has mastered the business of art by selling prints of his

original works. His most popular works include 19th century

depictions of ports in New York, Boston and San Francisco.

His 1986 work “Maiden Lane by Gaslight in 1882” is a classic

example of how Stobart likes to travel back in time to see today’s

ports in yesteryear.

“This viewpoint gave me an exciting chance to focus on the street

as it threaded its way past ships crowded into the port after a

shower had soaked the cobblestones,” Stobart wrote. “In the center, a

hansom cab driver waves to a friend chatting on the sidewalk as he

turns to proceed up Maiden Lane, the gas lamps picking out items of

interest in pools of light along the street.”

The English-born artist cultivated this retrospective gaze after

first moving to America in the 1960s and marveling at how little

preserved history is visible in the young nation. He decided to

dedicate his works to recapturing these lost glory days.