Marine painter, Franklin Stanwood entered Portland, Maine's art scene
at the height of it. Born at the Portland Alms House on March 16, 1852, he
was listed on his birth certificate as the son of Margaret Barclay. Samuel
Stanwood of Scarborough, Maine took Franklin and his mother in. Samuel felt
for them but did not have sufficient money to adopt the boy. So he asked his
brother, Gideon Stanwood to adopt him.
Franklin attended the public school in Portland and later Gorham
Academy near Portland, there he began writing (inspired by Shakespeare and
Poe). After graduation Franklin was attracted to the sea and went as a
mariner to Europe, the West Indies, and around the Horn. "View on the Pampas
of Peru" his first known oil painting was created on one of these voyages.
In 1877 Stanwood left the sea to become a marine painter and, under
the pen name "Verde," published his first poem in the Portland Press. While
living in Gorham, he opened a studio at 167 Fore Street in Portland,
according to the city directories. Two years later he was living in Portland
at 188 Spring Street and had his studio at 191 Middle Street.
The death of his adopted father, Gideon Stanwood and low sales of his
paintings forced him to head back to Gorham in the mid-1880's. There he
opened his studio in the Stanwood family barn. The artist died of
consumption in 1888.
Stanwood was a self-taught artist "whose tight, linear style
characteristic of the 1850's was admirably suited to the subject matter he
favored." Paintings of houses and portraits sustained the artist. Today
several house paintings survive and a single portrait does too. He was also
known to have painted at least two genre pictures and some landscapes.
