Lending grace and delight to daily activities, his paintings show women celebrating spring with forsythia, calling in their cats at dusk, gossiping, planting trees, or sunbathing sans clothing. Men sip their morning coffee, repair windows, gather fishing gear and wait for the fog to lift. Mermaids, sheep, and sleeping sailors populate rugged, elemental scenes. And always, soaring overhead in the seascapes for which Irvine is best-known, there are gulls, whose cries, soaring flights, and calculated stillness captivate the painter.
Irvine moved to Maine in 1968 and was immediately drawn to the fishing villages of Corea and Jonesport, whose tidy houses reminded him of the white farms dotting the green hills of Scotland, where he grew up.
William Irvine: At Home joins William Irvine: A Painter's Journey in establishing Irvine as a Maine and American master.