Throughout the month of November, the Northeast Harbor Library will exhibit paintings by Phyllis Rees. Phyllis painted intimate views of nature on and around Mount Desert Island from 1975 until she became disabled in 2010. Phyllis died in 2012. The exhibit is curated by her husband, Peter Rees.
Phyllis received her BA at San Jose College and studied for three years in Paris at the Academie de la Grand Chaimiere, the Ecole de Louvre and Sorbonne. She spent two years in the MFA painting program at Boston University and studied at Skowhegan School of Painting. A lover of hiking, skiing and sailing while she could; art, music, nature, chocolate, jokes, friends and family, Phyllis led a full life despite increasing challenges of rheumatoid arthritis and other serious disabling conditions.
In 2006, Acadia National Park published a book of Phyllis’s paintings of scenes in the park, with an introduction by Carl Little. in It, Little says, “Where so many painters of Mount Desert Island offer scenic vistas or well-known landmarks, Phyllis Rees follows a road less traveled, presenting segments of trailside nature that appeal to her eye – and to ours. There, in a flooded meadow or a rippling brook, she finds an essence that has its own special drama and remarkable beauty.”
