Loring W. Coleman - Living and Painting in a Changing New England, An Autobiography
11 x 12", 240 pages, hardcover, 115 color plates.
Written by Loring W. Coleman, NA, AWS; Edited by Hugh Fortmiller with a Foreword by Henry Adams.
Published by Hard Press Editions in association with Hudson Hills Press
ISBN : 978-1-55595-341-6

Images from Loring W. Coleman - Living and Painting in a Changing New England, An Autobiography. Click for a larger image.

Monument, 40 x 27", Watercolor on 1115 lb. Arches Cold Press Paper, 1997.

Home, watercolor, 25 x 38", 1115lb. Arches Cold Press Paper, 2003

Vintage Dodge, watercolor, 18 ½ x 26 ½", 300 lb
Arches Hot Press Paper, 1999

Loring W. Coleman, one of New England's leading realists, shares his lifetime of art through a recounting of amusing and intriguing experiences as a student and teacher. Thirty anecdotal essays are featured, showcasing his paintings representative of his work from the 1950s through the early 21st century. These cleverly drawn stories are derived from his own impressions and experiences during the creation of these paintings. Loring W. Coleman touches us in our knowing of a New England landscape and its deep impressions of leaning farmhouses, sagging Colonials with a few shingles missing, and barely-there barns. His style is exact, capturing weight, light and an introspective silence in a moment of vanishing beauty.

"You have seen Loring Coleman's New England, though you may not have noticed it," says Louise Kennedy of the Boston Globe. "Look past the strip malls and the busy new suburban developments, with their mass-produced imitations of old Colonial charm. Look past the old Colonial charm, too, past the meticulously restored white clapboard houses around the immaculate village greens. Look, instead, at the swaybacked farmhouse that could use a coat of paint. Notice the old barn with a tar-papered shed tacked on. Find the rusting tractor, veiled by a scrim of weeds. That is the New England that Loring Coleman sees, and it is the New England he has been painting for most of his 84 years."

Coleman studied with New England notables Hermann Dudley Murphy, Charles Curtis Allen and Bernard Keyes and then went on to teach as Head of the Art Department at Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts from 1958 to 1974. His work is part of many public collections. He is induction in 1941 in the Guild of Boston Artists made him the youngest painter ever elected to membership. He is also a member since 1941 of the Salmagundi Club. He lives with his wife, Katinka, in Harvard, Massachusetts.

Loring Coleman's work can be found in the following collections:
Acton Town Hall, Acton, MA
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
Canton Art Institute, Canton OH
Concord Public Library, Concord, MA
Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA
Fitchburg Museum of Art, Fitch, MA
Ford Motor Co., Detroit, MI
Maryhill Museum, Goldendale, WA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
National Academy, New York, NY
Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY
Salmagundi Club, New York, NY
Sudbury Public Library, Sudbury, MA

Contributors:

Henry Adams is an author, American art historian and Professor at Case University. A specialist in American Art of the 19th century, Dr. Adams has worked at a number of museums: served as curator of Fine Arts at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, as curator of American Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, as curator of American Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, as director of the Cummer Museum of Art in Jacksonville, Florida, and as interim director of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Kansas City. He has also taught at the University of Illinois, the University of Pittsburgh, Colorado College, the University of Kansas, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Dr. Adams has published widely, focusing principally on American artists of the 19th and early 20th century including: George Caleb Bingham, Thomas Cole, John F. Kensett, John La Farge, William Morris Hunt, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, George Bellows, Charles Burchfield, Thomas Hart Benton, John Graham, Fairfield Porter, and David Hockney.

The text is edited by Hugh Fortmiller, author, photographer, and long time colleague and friend. Hugh taught English, theatre and introduction to art history at Middlesex School in Concord Massachusetts for 42 years during which time he chaired the English and arts departments and served as college counselor, Associate Head, and Acting Head of School.