Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Jeremiah P. Hardy’S The Smelt Seller Genre Painting In Bangor, Molly Mulhern Gross

Maine History

As a painter of portraits and genre studies, Jeremiah P. Hardy was a sensitive barometer of Bangor’s cultural aspirations. During his career, which spanned sixty-two years, he painted hundreds of portraits, then shifted to genre painting a course reflecting both national trends and the altered meanings of gentility in Bangor. In this article, Molly Mulhern Gross provides other reasons for Hardy’s mid-career change and explains why The Smelt Seller might have appealed to its cultured viewers. Ms. Mulhern Gross met The Smelt Seller while working as a research associate at the Farnsworth Art Museum in 1992. Her research was part …