Description
Giclée reproduction of “Schooner Ernestina” from the original oil painting by artist Scott Kennedy in 1999.
About “Schooner Ernestina”
The schooner Ernestina, as I got to know her, was the oldest surviving Grand Banks schooner. Still active with a local sail training group, she was very prominent with her 152-foot figure in New Bedford and Fairhaven.
The schooner was built not too far away, just north Gloucester in Essex, Massachusetts, in 1894. The original skipper named her the “Effie M. Morrissey” after his daughter. She fished the Grand Banks for many years and then was sold to start a new life exploring the Arctic seas from the 1920s to the mid 1940s.
In 1982, she underwent a complete rebuild and sailed back to the USA with a crew of Cape Verdeans and Americans. Today, schooner Ernestina is a National Historic Landmark and regularly sails the New England coast on educational cruises.
Painting “Schooner Ernestina”
At the time, I was living near Fairhaven, across the Acushnet River from the harbor of New Bedford. Commonly called Southcoast – or South Coast of Massachusetts – this is a very special part of New England.
I explored so many interesting sights along the old wharfs. Still in existence after hundreds of years were many old wooden ships along and an old-time culture of living off the sea.
Kelley’s Shipyard in Fairhaven – now Fairhaven Shipyard – happened to be one of the most accessible docks and it offered lots of subject matter.
One cold winter day I found the schooner Ernestina hauled out at Kelley’s Shipyard down on Water Street. I came prepared with oil paint and panel and felt this impression was worth taking down.
The low light from the south west was particularly special that day – as it was during so many days in this area. I used that luminosity in the sky to create what “luminist” painter Fitz Hugh Lane called a sublime and poetic atmosphere. (An attraction for the special lighting in this area was also evidenced in the paintings of such notables as Albert Bierstadt and William Bradford from New Bedford.)
Related artwork
See Scott Kennedy’s watercolor painting “Lido Shipyard” and the oil on canvas painting “Fairhaven Waterfront – Ernestina and Adventure”. Also, check out the watercolor painting titled “Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway”.
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