The Still Life World of Annie Hardy

Hung on the walls at Bangor’s public library and the historical Thomas A. Hill House are 19th Century paintings of well-dressed children, political dignitaries, lumber barons, and their wives. Many of these early portraits were created by Bangor’s most popular artist of the time, Jeremiah Hardy.

Among these paintings, however, can be seen, here and there, smaller framed images of roses.

Most of us would not recognize the faces of the merchants, women in silks, or cherub children who have long gone from this world. But we certainly can relate to the detailed renderings of flowers, unchanged by time, as depicted by Jeremiah’s daughter, Anna Eliza Hardy.

Jeremiah Hardy.

Proclaimed Maine’s best still life artist of the 19th Century, Annie, as she liked to be called, broke away at times from the traditional flowers arranged in a vase to a freer image of flowers hanging from a wall, laying in a clump, or growing along a fence.

Annie’s parents, Jeremiah (also known as Jerry) and the former Catherine Sears Wheeler, hailed from Hampden, a town which borders Bangor. During their marriage the Hardys lived on the main road that connects the two communities and runs parallel to the mighty Penobscot River.

Some accounts say that Annie was born in 1839 in Bangor, but several genealogies state that she was born in Hampden. Regardless, she lived close enough to both.

Childhood home of Catherine Wheeler Hardy in Hampden.

Her mother was the daughter of Robert Wheeler and the former Rebecca Sears, and Catherine’s paternal grandfather was Benjamin Wheeler, the first settler of Hampden.

Robert was the first white child born along the Penobscot above the coastal town of Castine. A wharf builder by trade, he built the Long Wharf in Hampden where the USS frigate John Adams was blown up in 1814 by Americans, preventing the ship from being captured by the British. A major in the Maine militia, Robert took part in the Hampden battle.

Portrait of Catherine and Annie Hardy by Jeremiah, 1847.

Jerry was the son of Solomon and Anna (Pearson) Hardy. His family left Pelham, N.H., a farming community, when he was a young boy and took up farming in Hampton by 1811. As youngsters, he and Catherine would have experienced the ransacking of Hampden (and Bangor) by the redcoats.

Jerry did not follow in his father’s footsteps, however. He studied painting in Boston under David Brown and traveled to New York City to paint under Samuel F. B. Morse, an artist and inventor of the telegraph.

Yellow roses by Annie Hardy.

Back in Bangor by 1826, Jerry opened a portrait and miniature studio over the B. Nourse Bookstore. He was the first professional portrait artist to set up shop in what soon became a bustling city.

By the mid-1800s Bangor was considered the lumber capital of the world. Logs from virgin forests to the north were hauled to the Penobscot River where they floated down to the city. Sawmills cut the logs into boards, which were transported by ships via the Atlantic Ocean to ports near and far.

During this time of prosperity, some Mainers thought Bangor would rival the city of Boston, Massachusetts, in wealth, culture, and architecture. One indication of this was that well-off Bangor merchants and lumber barons wanted portraits of themselves and their family members displayed in their newly-built mansions. As a result, Jerry’s business soared.

A copy of an 1820s Jeremiah Hardy portrait by Annie Hardy, 1886. Sarah Molasses was the daughter of Penobscot Gov. John Neptune and Mary Palagie, aka Molly Molasses.

Besides the studio downtown, the Hardy household was also a hub of creativity. Jerry’s younger sister, Mary Ann Hardy, a professional miniature and landscape artist, lived there as well as Annie’s older brother, Frank, also an artist. Graduating from Yale in 1852, Frank then went into business with his father. Specializing in photography, he and Jerry gave customers the options of having their black and white images hand-tinted or rendered as oil paintings.

By the time Annie was 16, she reportedly copied a landscape of her father’s, at his request, in exchange for keeping his painting. Her father was her primary art teacher, but she also spent time in Paris, France, under the instruction of Georges Jeannin, a popular floral artist, and under Abott H. Thayer of New Hampshire, a naturalist and painter of portraits, landscapes, and animals.

Artist’s garden by Jeremiah Hardy.

While showing an interest in a wide variety of subjects—from science to politics—Annie, fascinated by color, perfected her still life style in Bangor. 

Aside from painting, she and her father also found time to organize the Bangor Arts Society in 1875. By the following year, over 300 people had joined.

Annie?

A perfect spot for social gatherings, the Hardy home included a lovely view of the Penobscot River and a lush flower garden that Jerry maintained. A painting by him during that period shows part of the garden in bloom with a woman, dressed in blue, watering some roses.

Was that Annie? We may never know as her face is hidden by a simple yet fashionable straw hat.

Perhaps, like the French painter Claude Monet who was only a year younger, Annie may have found inspiration for her art in the garden. Monet, who maintained his own garden at Giverny, famously stated, “What I need most are flowers, always.”

A chromolithograph portion of Annie’s poppies.

Annie didn’t always work in the garden or at her father’s studio nearby. She went further afield and exhibited her paintings at various venues outside of Maine from 1876 to 1917, including the National Academy of Design, the Boston Art Club, the Jordon Art Gallery in Boston, and the Society of Independent Artists. Also in the 1870s, the famed Louis Prang and Company of Boston produced several chromolithographs of her work.

While in Bangor, Annie also taught oil painting, watercoloring, and china painting to a number of female artists such as Mary Ann Merrill (known for her marine paintings), Charlotte Baldwin, Emma Webb, Florence Jennison, Grace Hall Hemingway, Nellie Lincoln, and Katherine Parker Stewart.

Flowers in a basket.

After the busy decade of the 1870s—not withstanding the 1876 death of Catherine—the 1880s were sad times for the Hardy family. Aunt Mary Ann died in 1887, and Jerry died in 1888. 

But Annie continued painting. Even into the 1900s she was listed in the city directory as an artist with a studio—most likely at the Hardy residence of which she was now head—at 698 Main Street, diagonally across from Thatcher Street and not far from the Hampden town line. Her brother Frank’s grown daughters Mary and Harriet, who was also a professional artist, lived with her.

A chromolithograph portion of Annie’s morning glories.

Just as the United States was entering World War I, Annie participated in the first annual exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917. The show opened at the Grand Central Palace in New York City and thousands attended. About 1,200 artists from 38 states displayed their work.

This may have been the last time Annie showed her work publicly. 

Gaining in years and with her eyesight fading, Annie decided—for whatever reasons—to leave Bangor behind. Some sources state that she lived awhile with her niece Mary, who had moved to Orrington. The 1920 federal census shows that she was living by then on Washington Street in Providence, Rhode Island. By the 1930 census, she had bought a house on Cheshire Street in Boston where she resided with Harriet. An active part of the Boston art scene for years, she may have had friends nearby.

Blackberries.

Finally in 1934, after reaching the age of 95, Annie died in Massachusetts. She was buried, however, back in Hampden at the Locust Grove Cemetery where her parents were also buried…back in Maine where the cultivated and wild flowers she so loved still bloomed each year.

Today Annie’s paintings occasionally are shown at auctions, with some having sold for several thousands of dollars. The desirability of well-rendered florals, it seems, is timeless.

Wild roses.

The general public can also enjoy Annie’s paintings without having to buy any. In addition to the Bangor library and historical society, her work can be viewed at the Portland Museum of Art, the Colby Museum of Art in Waterville, the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. Chromolithographs of several of her florals kept at the Boston Public Library can be seen online at digitalcommonwealth.org.