New Acquisition: Anne Carleton

Farnsworth Art Museum

Anne Carleton (1878-1968), Milkweeds in Maine. Oil on canvas, 365/₈ x 485/₈ in. Collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine. Museum purchase, Lynne Drexler Acquisition Fund, 2025.2.

A significant painting was recently added to the collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, bolstering its recognition of women artists that were once overlooked. The acquisition of Milkweeds in Maine, by artist Anne Carleton (1878-1968), came to fruition during the height of the museum’s exhibition Capturing Her Environment: Women Artists, 1870-1930.

Although the piece was not included in the exhibition, it’s certainly a fine complement to its exploration of nine women artists who lived and work in Maine in the 19th and early 20th century. They were often overshadowed by male artists in their families or merely dismissed as hobby painters.

“Anne Carleton was born in Atkinson, New Hampshire, and moved to Boston to study painting at the Massachusetts Normal Art School, an institution that specialized in the training of art teachers for the state’s public school system,” explains Francesca Soriano, associate curator of American art. “From 1913 until her passing in 1968, she worked from the Lynn, Marblehead and Needham districts, yet pursued her own painting in the summers and chose to study and later teach at Charles Woodbury’s Summer School of Drawing and Painting in Ogunquit, Maine.”

Soriano continues, “Carleton was an early friend of Woodbury’s but did not take any of his courses until 1927. For many years she rented a cottage near Woodbury’s studio, painting various scenes from Ogunquit alongside other notable...”

Woodbury was an advocate for painting directly from nature, which is conveyed in Carleton’s bright color palette and landscape subject found in Milkweeds in Maine. From this experience with Woodbury, Carleton also developed a dynamic and expressive brushstroke that “reflects an artist contending with the rapidly changing artistic styles of the first half of the 20th century,” says Soriano. “Beyond Ogunquit, Carleton exhibited at the Art Students League in New York, and in 1919, traveled to Paris to study with Alexander Archipenko at L’Ecole d’Art. She was also offered a Guggenheim Fellowship in the 1930s but ultimately turned it down to keep teaching.”

This is the first work by Carleton to enter the Farnsworth’s collection. —