Born in Chapman, Kansas, in 1887, Henry Varnum Poor became a prominent American Realist artist in the 1920s and 30s, renowned for his ceramics and frescoes. He was accepted at Stanford University in 1906, where he discovered his passion for art. In 1910, he moved to London and attended the Slade School of Art, and then the Académie Julian in Paris a year later. After his studies, he taught at his alma mater Stanford, until he was drafted in World War I and served in France. In the 1930s, the government took notice of his skill as a fresco artist and commissioned him murals for the Justice Department and the Department of the Interior. These frescoes delt with topical scenes of American life, history, justice, and conservation, reflecting the values of the buildings they were commissioned for. Poor then served in World War II and met Willard Cummings while in Alaska. Following the war, he co-founded the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture with Cummings, Charles Cutler, and Sidney Simon, with the goal of fostering a space for diverse artistic viewpoints. In 1956, Poor contributed to the South Solon Meeting House with a fresco in the vestibule, along with other permanent members of the Skowhegan faculty (Cummings 51). Poor left a lasting legacy in the arts world, and is remembered after his death in 1971 as a gifted ceramicist, painter, and fresco artist—a sort of master of all trades within the arts world. His works have been exhibited in museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum. The Colby College Museum of Art, only a forty-minute drive from the Meeting House, holds an rich collection of Poor’s works—oil paintings, ceramics, and works on paper.
—Lydia Burke
- Cummings, Mildred H. South Solon: The Story of a Meeting House. South Solon, Maine: South Solon Historical Society, 1959.
- Grant, Daniel. “Henry Varnum Poor: Poor’s No Pauper.” Artnet.com.
- Schwarzenholz, Lisa. “Henry Varnum Poor in the School of American Art.” Folder II Series B, Special Collections & Archives, Colby College.
- Wikipedia. “Henry Varnum Poor.”
- Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives. “A Finding Aid to the Henry Varnum Poor Papers, 1873-2001, bulk 1904-1970, in the Archives of American Art.”