As usual, summer in Maine is brimming with interesting art experiences, and the state’s treasure of museums are meeting the challenge. There are collaborations, chief among them the jointly organized exhibition “By Design: The Worlds of Betsy James Wyeth,” which examines various places where Andrew Wyeth’s wife, Betsy, left the indelible imprint of her design sensibilities. (See also Colby College Museum of Art and Farnsworth Art Museum, below. The Brandywine Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania is the third collaborator.) The Ogunquit Museum of American Art and Bates College are also joining forces to present the largest survey of Carl Spinchorn ever to be mounted.

Abbe Museum, Bangor

“Shadow of the Eagle” (through October) marks the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, using the Revolutionary War as a prism through which to examine Native American points of view on military service, treaties and self-governance. It will present the work of many leading Wabanaki artists and other Native artists outside the Dawnlands of what is now called Maine. For more, go to abbemuseum.org or 207-288-3519.

Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston

“Phyllis Graber Jensen: Picture Stories,” (June 12-Sept. 19). A fixture at the college as director of photography and video for the communication and marketing office, Graber Jensen’s career retrospective begins with her photographic chronicles of the women’s liberation movement in 1970s Denmark, continues through her photography for the Boston Herald and ends with her time in Maine. Throughout, what emerges is her commitment to the medium as a critical mode of communication and historical preservation. For more, go to bates.edu/museum or 207-786-6158.

Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick

“Celebrating Independence!: Fifty Years of Spindleworks, 1976-2026” (May 20-Aug. 16). The progressive Spindleworks Art Center in Brunswick (with a sister operation in Gardiner) has nurtured the art of countless artists working in paper, painting, sculpture, poetry, weaving, music, dance, film and poetry. This show will be organized thematically and will illustrate the ways it has supported artists — especially those with disabilities — throughout half a century. For more, go to bowdoin.edu/art-museum or 207-725-3275.

Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland

“Bianca Beck” (May 13-Sept. 6) will feature five new brightly colored, monumentally proportioned abstract sculptures that gesture toward the figure. “As the site of all experience, our bodies hold our own histories, as well as that of each other,” explains Beck in their statement. “We are here because of everything that has come before, and we each have the power to impact what is to come.” For more, go to cmcanow.org or 207-701-5005.

Colby Museum of Art, Waterville

For Colby’s version of “By Design: The Worlds of Betsy James Wyeth” (June 12-Nov. 2), the college invited four contemporary artists — Mandy Lamb, Linda Nguyen Lopez, Elaine K. Ng and Claire Pentecost — to respond to the environments created by Wyeth on Allen and Benner islands. According to curator Kendall DeBoer, these islands are the site of her “magnum opus,” and the artists channeled what they sense as ghostly remnants of Betsy Wyeth’s spirit through photography, chromographic prints, ceramics and other media. The show will be mounted at the Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center, 93 Maine St., Waterville.

In the Jetté Galleries on campus, “Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guan, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas” (July 11, 2025-June 6, 2027) gathers about 50 paintings, sculptures, videos, prints, photographs and multimedia installations, including several newly commissioned works. Collectively, they explore how the work of more than 40 artists from these island nations express themes of cultural and political self-determination, indigeneity and migration, and climate crisis and resilience. For more, go to museum-exhibitions.colby.edu or 207-859-5600.

Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland

The museum’s portion of “By Design: The Worlds of Betsy James Wyeth” (May 2-Dec. 31), focuses on the early built environments where Betsy developed her design and landscape sensibilities: Broad Cove Farm and the Olson House in Cushing (the site of what is arguably Andrew Wyeth’s most famous painting, “Christina’s World”) and Southern Island a mile off Tenants Harbor. It will feature paintings by Andrew Wyeth and archival material, including original objects collected by Wyeth. For more, go to farnsworthmuseum.org or 207-596-6457.

Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design, Portland

“Pyrite Radio” (June 26-Sept. 13) examines the work of native Mainer and MECA&D professor Peter Simensky, who died unexpectedly at 48 in 2023. Simensky, who also served as chair of the Graduate Fine Arts MFA program at California College of the Arts, created sculptures, video, audio objects and “transmitter sculptures” inspired by early crystal radios that explored “concepts of sound, connectivity and value systems. Curator and writer Jeanne Gerrity wrote that “Peter cleverly exposed the fascinating yet often sinister relationship between contemporary art and financial capital …” For more, go to meca.edu/ica or 207-699-5029.

Maine Jewish Museum, Portland

Photographer “Rose Marasco’s: My Nature” highlights work by this longtime, boundary-pushing photographer and instructor. For more, go to mainejewishmuseum.org or 207-773-2339.

Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, Portland

Two exhibits inaugurate the new Commercial Street location of this museum (June 5-Aug. 1). “Of Home & Place” showcases 21 artists, installations, sculpture, mixed media, alternative processes and more, while “Looking at You!” is an exhibit curated by Jan Pieter van Voorst van Beast that “concentrates on instinctual, unpremeditated, reactive and spontaneous chance encounters and random incidents while creating visual narratives illustrating the human condition.” For more, go to mainemuseumofphotographicarts.org or 207-298-7712.

Monhegan Museum of Art & History, Monhegan Island

“To Monhegan, With Love: The Susan Bateson and Stephen S. Fuller Collection” (July 1-Sept. 30) represents the largest gift received by the venerable Monhegan Museum of Art & History: 89 paintings of the island spanning 150 years, made by such famous artists as George Bellows, Constance Cochrane, James Fitzgerald, Robert Henri, Elena Jahn, Rockwell Kent and many others. For more, go to monheganmuseum.org or 207-596-7003.

Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit

In April, the museum opened two provocative shows in conjunction with the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: “American Conversations” and “Looking for America.” Both these shows are a must on the summer arts museum crawl. But Aug. 6 marks the opening of “Carl Sprinchorn: All the World Is a Painting” (through Nov. 15), a look at an important yet underrecognized figure on the Ogunquit scene. A student of Robert Henri (himself no stranger to Maine) and a friend of other Maine-associated artists such as the Zorachs, Marsden Hartley and Charles Demuth, Sprinchorn was at the forefront of currents in modern art, as well as a Swedish immigrant and a gay man. This show, in collaboration with another opening at Bates College in October, represents the largest survey of this artist’s work to date. For more, go to ogunquitmuseum.org or 207-646-4909.

Portland Museum of Art

The big news this summer at the PMA is “Winslow Homer: Painter, Etcher” (July 3-Oct. 18). This institution boasts one of the preeminent collections of Homer’s works in America (along with stewardship of his historic studio on Prout’s Neck). The exhibition will focus on the artist’s etchings, many of them paired with related oil paintings, drawings, proofs and watercolors. Curated by Ramey Mize, it represents a formidable undertaking and allows viewers the luxury of vital context for the works by virtue of its proximity to the studio where Homer conceived his etchings, on which he worked with Brooklyn-based fine printmaker George W.H. Ritchie. The exhibition will also present new scholarship on the artist, as well as a rare chance to also see the iconic works that inspired most of the etchings. For more, go to portlandmuseum.org or 207- 775-7148.

University of New England, Portland and Biddeford

At the Portland campus, “Arrows & Operators: Visual Debates in Music” (July 10-Nov. 1) juxtaposes “Treatise,” a landmark graphic score — meaning a representation of music through visual symbols outside the realm of simple notes — created between 1963 and 1967 by Cornelius Cardew, with works by various artists, including Philip Greenleaf, Frank Mauceri and Lauren Tosswill. 

At the Biddeford campus, “Another Shore” (June 5-Oct. 25) examines migration sparked by political disruption, climate change and other events through the eyes of Portsmouth-based Sachiko Akiyama, New York sculptor A. Annenberg and Maine painter Flynn Donovan (who migrated from Ecuador). Texts are by Anne Marie Mukankusi, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. For more, go to library.une.edu/art-galleries or 207-602-3000.

University of Southern Maine, Portland and Gorham

At the Crewe Center for the Arts, Portland, “Even As We Grieve” (through July 31) is a deeply personal and reflective exhibition in which artist-in-residence Peter Bruun explores how human connection can help us transform our pain. It presents drawings and paintings created since his daughter died from an overdose 2014.

At the Gorham Art Gallery, “You Once Had An Aunt” (May 21-Aug. 22) is Bruun’s celebration of the birth of his grandson through 100 paintings and an audio collage of voice, which also evokes the aunt he will never know (see Crewe Center above). For more, go to usm.maine.edu/gallery or 207-780-5409.

Zillman Art Museum, University of Maine, Bangor

“Sam Cady: Helter Skelter Paradise” (May 15-Sept. 5) is, according to Cady, “a playful and deadly serious contrast between the ‘Paradise’ of our everyday lives and the ‘Helter Skelter’ chaos in both the natural and human worlds.” It will include Cady’s own works — including, he explains, “a ‘collage’ design of a lot of my paintings [hung] upside down, sideways and slanted” — and, in a section called Paradise by Others, pieces by fellow artists that he has collected. For more, go to zam.umaine.edu or 207-581-3300.

Jorge S. Arango has written about art, design and architecture for over 35 years. He lives in Portland and can be reached at [email protected]. This story is supported by The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation.