The history of art in Maine is long, deep and diverse. Together, the state’s museums this fall seem to have coordinated their shows to offer us a particularly variegated chronology that allows us to observe its development from the 1800s until the present.

Bowdoin College Museum of Art is the ideal place to start. Its exhibit, “At First Light: Two Centuries of Artists in Maine” (through Nov. 6), is a kind of primer on the subject. It was originally intended to commemorate Maine’s bicentennial but had to be postponed because of the pandemic. In the last gallery in the show, a wall plaque describes Maine as “a site of reflection.” By the time we arrive here, we have come to understand how the state’s singular landscape, quality of light and easy access to nature have been subjects of reflection for hundreds of years.

Remarkably, the exhibition’s curators and co-directors of the museum – Anne Collins Goodyear and Frank H. Goodyear III – do not begin this narrative in the 1800s with painters like Jonathan Fisher, Winslow Homer and Charles Woodbury alone. Instead, they juxtapose these artists’ works with objects made by artisan members of the Wabanaki Confederacy who, they note in the excellent exhibition catalog, “have lived on these lands for roughly 11,000 years.”

There are many surprises in the form of works that have not been widely known or exhibited. Among these is Andrew Wyeth’s “Night Hauling” of 1944, an inky black painting depicting a man pulling lobster traps under cover of night, his boat surrounded by the bioluminescence of microscopic sea life. There are two exquisite Monhegan Island landscapes by Leon Kroll from 1913 and a gorgeous 1910 watercolor and gouache painting of sea swells by Charles Woodbury, whose summer painting school in Ogunquit attracted over 4,000 students from its inception in 1898 to the artist’s death in 1940.

There are two 1894 platinum prints by Emma Duncan Sewell, one of the earliest art photographers in Maine, and works from lesser-known art movements and collectives, such as the “Ten American Painters” (a group of leading American Impressionists that included Frank Weston Benson, here represented by his sun-drenched 1909 oil-on-canvas “Summer”). And we can see the continuity of traditions amongst the Wabanaki from the first gallery, where we find a 1934 carved and scratched birch box, to the last, where former Penobscot chief Barry Dana used the same medium in 2015 to etch faces into a birch bark basket.

One of the galleries is devoted to Walter Smalling Jr.’s photographs of studios and houses where various Maine artists worked or continue to work – Winslow Homer, John Marin, David C. Driskell, Lois Dodd, Molly Neptune Parker and William Wegman among them.

Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 255 Maine St., Brunswick. bowdoin.edu/art-museum

The Farnsworth Art Museum looks like an entirely new museum. For one thing, guest curator Suzette McAvoy has freshened the look of the permanent collection in “Farnsworth Forward” (through Dec. 31), for which she hung new acquisitions with historical works. Through intriguing juxtapositions, the show brings many works out of storage to trace a fascinating trajectory of art in Maine.

The museum is renowned for its Andrew Wyeth paintings, of course, and “Andrew Wyeth: Islands in Maine” presents works from 1938 to 2003 of islands in Muscongus and Penobscot bays. His early tempera paintings are also on view. Both shows run through Oct. 16.

For sheer joy, don’t miss “Ashley Bryan: Beauty in Return,” an ebullient affirmation of this beloved artist’s creative life. Looking at the wall-size photo of Bryan’s Islesford studio, one can sense him inhaling the entirety of life whole. Crammed to the gills with all manner of objects and artifacts, it was the place where Bryan – who died in February – turned out books (including many drawn from oral African folk tales and African American spirituals), illustrations, cut-paper collages, oil paintings, handmade puppets, watercolors, tempera paintings, linoleum block prints, ink works and gouaches.

And from Sept. 23 through Dec. 31, the Farnsworth will present “Louise Nevelson: Dawn to Dusk,” which will include over 40 of her paintings, drawings, jewelry, early figurative sculptures and her signature wood constructions.

Farnsworth Art Museum, 16 Museum St., Rockland. farnsworthmuseum.org

Hurry! You have one more week to see two extraordinary shows at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (through Sept. 11) before the fall exhibitions arrive. “Veronica Perez: Voices, Whispering” features sculptures of braided and woven artificial hair created during a residency at the Lunder Institute at Colby College. It is thrilling to see this Latinx artist push her chosen medium to extremes. For sheer scale and ambition, “Cacophanous Ancestral Apparition” will take your breath away.

And “Reggie Burrows Hodges: Hawkeye” moves this great painter’s work into numinous territory. At the firmament of everything is blackness, which, aside from being a cultural and racial reference, in these large-scale works seems to also be a metaphor for time, memory and the void. Of special note here are the borderline abstract works of tennis courts, where colors float above the black in simple, yet ethereal, compositions.

Up for fall are several shows, all starting Oct. 1 and running through Jan. 8. None is more irresistible than Elijah Ober’s “Calcium/Your Future Ex Squirrelfriend.” The first part of that equation consists of two digitally animated videos of snails in search of the calcium that strengthens their shells. They are both charming and hypnotic, simultaneously transmitting a sense of this small creature’s tenacity and cute weirdness. The second part of the title refers to sculptures of squirrels made of Styrofoam, which capture rodents we often see as nuisances in all their paradoxical moods and qualities.

Ian Trask’s “Mind Loops” is part science project, part art. He uses materials salvaged from the waste stream and composes wall and suspended sculptures that deal with the interconnectedness of all things.

Portland artist Daniel Minter and Brazilian artist Eneida Sanches will collaborate on an 1,800-square-foot installation called “through this to that: When artists of the African Diaspora meet, broken threads are re-tied and double-knotted.” It will explore themes of transition and transmission. Various artists from Maine or with connections to the state will exhibit art in multiple media that examine interior spaces in “Interior.” It’s quite a lineup with lots to see.

Center for Maine Contemporary Art, 21 Winter St., Rockland. cmcanow.org

Until Sept. 11, the Portland Museum of Art offers a thorough, nuanced view into the art of one of Maine’s most renowned contemporary painters: Katherine Bradford. The exhibition makes clear that Bradford’s wide appeal lies in the ways she elucidates the awkwardness and absurdity we experience during moments of great life transition – exemplified, of course, by her own journey from suburban housewife to single mother, painter and lesbian (not necessarily in that order). In her brightly colored canvases, figures appear clumsy and naïve (sometimes a bit too self-consciously so), but ultimately seem to find humor and humility in the stumbling, fumbling process of human development and growth.

Opening Nov. 4 (through Mar. 5) is “Kathy Butterly: Out of one, many/Headscapes.” It’s an apt follow-up to Bradford in that Butterly’s work often exemplifies our unceasing state of transformation. “Out of one, many” presents an extended riff – in porcelain – of a pint glass form. The malleability of clay is a perfect metaphor for restless changeability, and her handling of material can appear floppy, collapsed and soft, belying this artist’s rigorous process and skill. “Headscapes” are larger works, 10 of them especially made for the show, which resemble portrait busts and deal with anxieties associated with the many uncertainties and ambiguities of our contemporary world.

Portland Museum of Art, 7 Congress Square, Portland. portlandmuseum.org

Colby Museum of Art currently has two exhibitions devoted to Maine artists. “Andrew Wyeth: Life & Death” (through Oct. 13) presents recently rediscovered pencil drawings executed in the 1990s that depict visions of the artist’s own imagined funeral. While this might seem macabre, it is actually consistent with Wyeth’s abiding interest in death as a subject of artistic exploration.

“Alex Katz: Theater and Dance” (through Feb. 19) uses heretofore unseen sketches, as well as paintings, set designs and archival materials from the Paul Taylor Dance Company (with which Katz collaborated for 16 productions) to view the artist’s involvement in the performing arts. This engagement with dance and theater began in the 1960s and lasted for decades, and it illustrates a facet of Katz’s career that is perhaps unfamiliar to many.

Colby College Museum of Art, 5600 Mayflower Hill, Waterville. museum-exhibitions.colby.edu

Jorge S. Arango has written about art, design and architecture for over 35 years. He lives in Portland. He can be reached at: jorge@jsarango.com

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