• The Portland Museum of Art brings a touch of Europe to its galleries this summer, opening “The Draw of the Normandy Coast, 1860–1960” on June 14. This exhibition, much of which comes from the collection of museum benefactor Scott M. Black, charts the significance of the northern coast of France during this 100-year period. Convenient to Paris with dramatic cliffs and rock formations, Normandy lured a great variety of artists, including Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, James Whistler and Pablo Picasso, among many others. The show will also explore the importance of the towns and villages of Honfleur and Le Havre, and such unique destinations as Etretat. It will be on view through Sept. 3.
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• At the Bates College Museum of Art in Lewiston, the headlining exhibition this summer is “Starstruck: The Fine Art of Astrophotography.” Among the first major exhibitions examining astrophotography as an art genre, it opens June 9 and remains on view through Dec. 15.
The show will feature 106 images by 35 artists from 11 countries across five continents. For the opening reception, Weston Naef, a juror for the exhibition, will deliver a lecture, “Drawing with Light,” at 3:30 p.m. June 9.
The museum is in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. Summer hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
The museum’s curator of education, Anthony Shostak, organized the exhibition, which presents new scholarship in this rapidly evolving field. The artists’ creations, Shostak said in a press release, “are nothing less than overwhelming, depicting humbling, glorious delights that are often invisible to both the naked eye and even the telescope, and are revealed only through photographic means.”
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