Bill Thon of Port Clyde, an artist and sailor known for his paintings and drawings of boats and the sea, has left a bequest of his work to island and other Maine schools.
Thon, who died in December 2000 at 94, left some $5 million to the Portland Museum of Art, along with a good deal of his work. Now, that museum and the trustee of Thon’s estate are distributing paintings and drawings to 68 schools across the state. The plan is to provide Thon works to the biggest elementary and high schools in each county, except that all Portland schools, and all Knox County schools (Thon’s home county) will receive a piece of art.
Thon’s will states that his works should be shared with schools, museums, libraries and hospitals around Maine. So far, the reaction has been delight. At Rockland Middle School, student Kayla McGuire of Owls Head said the gift of a black-and-white painting of a gaff-rigged sloop was “cool.” She and others were admiring the picture as it was unpacked at the school library.
Island schools scheduled to receive Thon’s art include Cliff Island, Peaks Island, Isle au Haut, Matinicus, North Haven and Vinalhaven.
Thon invented his own particular technique of putting a piece of art paper in a water bath, then applying India ink in various strokes, with brushes and sponges, letting it bleed on the paper in something of an Oriental effect. In the final dozen years of his life, as macular degeneration robbed him of sight, he worked exclusively in black and white, his work becoming at once simpler and bolder, more elemental. Some critics consider these paintings to be his best.
Thon once said his failing vision was like looking through wax paper. Yet he painted curling waves, the rigging on boats straining in the wind, birch trees by a rock quarry. Thon said an art dealer once told him he believed Thon could paint in his sleep.
“I do about half my work by instinct,” Thon said in 1997. “A sailor used to be able to throw an eye splice, or a bowline, in the dark.”
Born in New York City, Thon quit school after eighth grade. He first tried bricklaying and painting billboards, and briefly attended The Art Students League. He was essentially a self-taught artist, as well as a lifelong reader of books who enjoyed lively discussions of boats, art, ideas, people and places. Besides his oils, watercolors and drawings, he built a number of finely detailed ship models, long before problems with his sight. One of Thon’s greatest pleasures was sailing his custom-built Friendship Sloop.
Thon and his wife, Helen, were married for 70 years, 50 of them spent in the house they built by the sea in Port Clyde, a property now owned by Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth. Thon was a friend to artist Andrew Wyeth, Jamie’s father. The Thons had no children.