Elena Louise Jahn, 76, a longtime Monhegan Island artist, died Wednesday at Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick of complications from scleroderma.
Ms. Jahn, of Brunswick, grew up in upstate New York but fell in love with Monhegan Island at age 11, when she began spending summers there and discovered art, said her daughter, Lisa Jahn-Clough.
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Jahn-Clough said her mother had returned to Monhegan almost every summer since then, even though she moved around as an adult, living in Brunswick, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, France and Puerto Rico.
“Monhegan made her the artist that she was. Maine and Monhegan Island was the consistent part of her life,” Jahn-Clough said Sunday of her mother, who was a member of Women Artists of Monhegan Island.
Even though her condition had taken a turn for the worse this year, Ms. Jahn insisted on spending the summer on the island, her daughter said.
“She was in Monhegan this summer even though it was difficult for her,” Jahn-Clough said. Because she suffered from scleroderma – a connective tissue disease whose symptoms are worse in cold weather – since the late 1980s, Ms. Jahn had split her time between Monhegan Island and Culebra, Puerto Rico.
Jahn-Clough said her mother’s artwork was “eclectic,” ranging from the realistic to the abstract.
“She did landscapes, figure drawing, oils, pastels, acrylics, watercolors. She was always challenging herself as an artist, up until the very end,” Jahn-Clough said.
Longtime friend Hallie Daughtry said Ms. Jahn was outgoing and had a sunny demeanor.
“She was full of life and very exuberant, the life of the party,” Daughtry said.
In 1991, her artwork was featured in a solo exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art’s “Maine Perspectives” series, which displayed her work from Maine and Puerto Rico.
Her artwork has also been exhibited in various collections in the United States, Canada, Norway and France.
When she lived in Rhode Island from 1966 to 1976, she was a co-founder of the HERA Cooperative Gallery in Wakefield. She moved to Brunswick in 1976.
Ms. Jahn earned a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University’s College of Art and a master’s degree in painting from the University of Wisconsin before studying in Paris as a Fulbright Scholar.
She also taught in college and university art departments in Wisconsin, Nova Scotia, Rhode Island, Norway and Maine.
She loved traveling and animals, and worked with the nonprofit organization Animal Welfare of Culebra to find homes for stray Puerto Rican dogs, her daughter said.
Ms. Jahn is survived by a son, Eric Jahn-Clough of Palermo; her daughter, Lisa Jahn-Clough and son-in-law, Ed Briant of Portland; and a brother, Carl Jahn of Dewitt, New York. She was predeceased by her parents, Edwin and Helen Jahn, and her ex-husband, Garrett Clough.
Maine memorial services will be held in the spring.
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