Frank Handlen
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
Biography
Born in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
in 1916, and raised in Caldwell, New Jersey
Caldwell, New Jersey
Caldwell is a borough located in northwestern Essex County, New Jersey, about outside of New York. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 7,822....
, Handlen depicts ships, the sea and the Maine landscape in oil and pastels. In 1938, his mentor, marine artist Frederick Judd Waugh, encouraged him to go to Maine, "where it will all be before you". Handlen settled first in Biddeford Pool
Biddeford Pool
Biddeford Pool is the large tidal pool, located off Saco Bay south of the mouth of the Saco River on the south coast of Maine. It is approximately 6 miles southeast of downtown Biddeford, to which it is connected via State Route 208...
and later in Kennebunkport. As a young man, he worked in Bernie Warner's shipyard on the Kennebunk River
Kennebunk River
The Kennebunk River is a river in southern Maine in the United States. It drains a settled rural area southwest of Portland, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean....
and eventually designed and built his own forty-foot, sixteen ton topsail schooner, The Saltwind, which is moored in the Kennebunk River
Kennebunk River
The Kennebunk River is a river in southern Maine in the United States. It drains a settled rural area southwest of Portland, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean....
behind his house, very near the site of the old shipyard. In the 1994, he was commissioned to create the heroic bronze statue, Our Forbears of the Coast, that stands on the Kennebunkport River Green.
Handlen was a Fellow of The American Society of Marine Artists, for 22 years. He illustrated "Seapiece The Story of a Maine Boy" by Will Beale and "The Story of Maine for Young Readers" by Melville Freeman and Estelle Hale Perry. His pastels, oil paintings and pen and ink drawings are extensively owned by private and corporate collectors including, The Kennebunkport Historical Society http://www.kporthistory.org, The Brick Store Museum, MBNA, Sears Robuck and The St. Botoph Club in Boston, to name a few.
See also
www.FrankHandlen.comBIO for show