Photo CreditCarol M. Highsmith Photography
Winter on the Coast
Artist
Lars Thorsen
Year1940
Classification
painting
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensionsimage: 19 3/4 x 23 1/2 in. (50.2 x 59.7 cm)
frame: 25 x 29 in. (63.5 x 73.7 cm)
frame: 25 x 29 in. (63.5 x 73.7 cm)
Credits
WPA, Federal Art Project, 1935-1943
Location
Lyman Allyn Art Museum
New London, CT
Lars Thorsen (1876–1952) was born in Stavanger, Norway. By the age of 12, he was working with his father on an Icelandic steamer and, by the age of 20, he had rounded Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America four times.
He worked variously as a mess-boy, sailmaker, rigger, and Grand Banks fisherman before arriving in Noank, Connecticut, in 1906, at the age of 30, to work as a master rigger at the shipyard.
Thorsen had no formal training as an artist. He taught himself to paint while at sea. In 1939, he started working for the WPA's Federal Art Project, for which he completed 81 artworks. Among them is this painting, Winter on the Coast, which is on long-term loan from GSA to the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Connecticut.
