Around 1860, George Morse, together
with several fellow artists, made up a group who called themselves
`The Brushians'... [whose] members all lived and worked in the
Portland, South Portland and Cape Elizabeth area [of Maine]."
They included C.F. Kimball, George Morse, Harvard M. Armstrong,
Rev. Henry G. Clark and Edward Griffin and later John Calvin Stevens,
John T. Wood, Frederick H. Thompson, Frederick J. Ilsley, C.C.
McKim, Tom F. O'Neil, Walter Bailey, Millard Baldwin, Charles
Fuller and Clifford Crocker. Some of the members are not well-known,
but their work is historically significant because of the images
they left of the Portland area and along the coast.
A connection to nature and an interest in observation, often played
out as a dallying in art, were common pastimes for proper Victorian
gentlemen. The Brushians were a group of artist-sportsmen who
took expeditions into the Maine wilderness at the turn of the
last century to hunt, paint, and commune with nature.
