The Art of Virginia Strom Precourt
57.
Neenah's Child: Maine Carnival
1957-2003
Oil on canvas on board
26 1/2” x 20 1/2”
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In the late 1950s, Virginia Strom Precourt and her husband took her children—boys aged 15 and 10—to a carnival in Bath, Maine. A young girl who ran a ring-toss booth captured her attention, and a quick shot with a camera would keep the image alive until she could return to the studio she kept in Linekin Bay, just around a small peninsula from Boothbay Harbor. The next morning, Virginia started to sketch the ring-toss girl. When she’d developed the film from her camera, she was able to add details to the sketch. And so it sat—pencil on paper—for nearly a half-century, when she pulled out the drawing and began to transform the sketch into a finished oil painting on canvas.
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