RUFUS PORTER
HISTORIC FOLK ART
DISCOVERED IN DANVILLE HOME
August 12, 2003
Imagine starting the task of stripping old paint and
wallpaper from your living room walls and discovering rare, historic folk art
murals painted on the plaster beneath. That's what happened to Jack and Ann
Howland in the early 1980's after they purchased the impressive federal style
house at 207 Main Street
just across from the Danville
Town Hall. They
researched and determined the murals were painted by Rufus Porter, the renowned
19th century itinerant painter, probably sometime in the 1820's when
the property was owned by the Dimond family. One cannot help but wonder if Mr.
Dimond was encouraged to engage him to paint these murals from Porter's
advertisement in the "Haverhill
Gazette" in April of 1821. It read … "portraits done in his
hotel room at Mr. Brown's Tavern"; or "Those who request it
will be waited on at their respective places of abode.”
Rufus Porter's folk art murals of New
England vistas are characterized by large scale, clear, bright
colors and bold design. Most included large "feather duster" elms,
harbor or water views, fields and farm village scenes, and often were adorned
with large, billowing white clouds. Rufus Porter's art was, in a sense,
rediscovered and brought to prominence in the 20th century by art
historian and author Jean Lipman, who wrote extensively about his fascinating
life and talents.
Porter's long life, he lived to age 93, is fascinating
because of the amazing number of trades and careers at which he excelled. Born
in West Boxford, MA in 1792, his prosperous family moved to Maine in his early years. His only formal
education consisted of six months at Fryeburg
Academy. In his early
teens he became a fiddler, and then an apprentice shoemaker. That was short
lived, as he yearned to travel and set out on foot for Portland where he became a house and sign
painter. He joined a military fife and drum band, taught school for a short
period, and wrote and published a book on music instruction. Somewhere in those
early years the itinerant urge struck again, and he set out for the west coast
and joined the crew of a merchant ship bound for Hawaii.
Moving from Portland to
New Haven, CT, he started a dancing school and a new
career as a portrait painter. He married in 1815 and fathered ten children. He
married again after the death of his wife and had six more children. It was
about the time of his first marriage that he started his wandering career as an
itinerant portrait and mural painter. In the 1820's Porter collaborated with
the now equally famous 19th century stenciler, Moses Eaton, painting
murals and stencils in several houses in New Hampshire
and Maine.
Around 1840 Porter gave up itinerant painting and moved to New York City where he became a journalist.
Interspersed throughout these many careers and endeavors he wrote and published
books on aerial navigation, and what was ultimately to become known as the
"horseless carriage." He is credited as being the first man to plan
and actually try out the possibilities of a power driven passenger plane ...
long before the Wright brothers. He was constantly probing for new ways to do
things, which led to his inventing and patenting, among other things, a life
preserver, a cheese press, a fire alarm, and a fog whistle. He also founded the
magazine, "The Scientific American,” which became quite successful,
but not until after Porter had sold it.
It would not be unfair to say that Rufus Porter was a
genius and a visionary, probably with talent and skills equal to a Thomas
Edison or a Henry Ford. But he also was a wanderer and a free spirit who seems
to have lacked the practical wherewithal to successfully merchandise and profit
from these varied skills and talents.
Rufus
Porter is best known today for the spirited and whimsical murals that adorn the
walls of old homes from Virginia north to Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont,
Maine, and, of course, Danville, New Hampshire.