The Rufus Porter Museum Pays Tribute To Artist, Inventor

BRIDGTON, MAINE

:It was at home in Indiana around 1985, after admiring the fancifully painted walls of another exhibitor's booth, that Julie Lindberg first began thinking about Rufus Porter, the visionary artist and inventor who, before his death in 1884, completed more than 150 murals in houses and taverns throughout New England.

Imbued with the industry and imagination that characterized his time, Porter also limned miniature portraits, taught others to paint, wrote instruction manuals, founded Scientific American and filed more than a hundred patents. In 1844, he sold Samuel Colt his idea for a revolving rifle for $100. Long before the Wright brothers ever dreamed of Kitty Hawk, Porter designed an airship.

After years of research, Julie and Carl Lindberg, Pennsylvania collectors and dealers in American folk art and Chinese Export porcelain, joined a group of Maine residents to found The Rufus Porter Museum and Cultural Heritage Center in Bridgton, where the Porters settled in 1801 and where the artist often returned during his peripatetic life. The museum, which recently opened publicly for its second season, is housed in a dwelling that itself boasts original Porter murals dating to circa 1825-28. The artist decorated a dozen local homes, three of which are still standing.