Universal York

Several years ago I wrote a York Sunday News column and some blog posts on native York artist Stephen Etnier (1903-1984). Etnier painted scenes of York, the Caribbean and many of Maine, where he spent a good part of his life.

Occasionally an Etnier work will come up for auction. Barridoff Galleries fine arts auctions in Portland, Maine are offering six of his works this Friday, the 16th. I’m sharing a couple here, but you can see them all by going to Barridoff’s website or to LiveAuctioneers.com or to Invaluable.com.

Etnier was expected to go into the family business, the S. Morgan Smith Company as his father Carey Etnier had. Etnier’s mother, Susan Smith, was the daughter of the company founder, Stephen Morgan Smith, Moravian pastor turned inventor industrialist. Instead the younger Etnier turned to art, perhaps inspired by the Frederic Church painting of a painting he saw when he was about 11. It was over the mantel of the Judge Jere Black’s mansion, later Wyndham, in York which the Etniers were in the process of buying. Mrs. Black was the former Isabelle Church, daughter of the famed artist. Etnier said he never forgot that painting.

After prep school and college Etnier attended the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, and he also studied with his friend, Rockwell Kent. Etnier settled in Maine, with which he had fallen in love as a boy when the Etniers summered there.

The York County Heritage Trust has several Etnier paintings, which I shared in a former post. There are also others in local private collections. The Historical Society of York County (now part of YCHT) mounted a joint exhibit of Etnier’s paintings and York native Charles Rudy’s sculpture in 1960. They also did a major exhibit of Etnier’s work in 1989, showing 59 of his works. A nice color catalog of that exhibit is available at the YCHT museum shop, at a deeply discounted price.