Who Are the Next Great Maine Artists?

Michael Colbert & Charlie Pike, Down East, June 2026

Droves of painters have found their way to Maine over the centuries, drawn to glancing light, lush woods, and rocky shores: Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Lois Dodd, Rockwell Kent, David Driskell, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Andrew Wyeth, to name but a few. Some simply passed through. Others became deeply identified with the state, joining the outsize canon of great Maine artists. The vast majority of names in that canon, though, have been there a good while, and at some point, an update will be in order. So we polled curators from across Maine’s museums—many of which have put added emphasis on up-and-coming talent lately—about contemporary artists they suspect we’ll all still be talking about a long time from now.