Oil on canvasexpand_more
Gift of Sheila and John Morganexpand_more 2012.45
Alexis Jean Fournier was born in St. Paul. As a young artist working in Minneapolis, he at first painted signs and stage sets—which perhaps gave him a taste for the arresting and dramatic. He painted Off the Coast after visiting the North Shore of Lake Superior. At that time, boats were the sole means of access, and steamships plied the waters with passengers and supplies destined for the small communities along the lake. The burgeoning timber industry had not yet devastated the vast pine stands near the shore. Re-creating the drama of his visit, Fournier depicted massive cliffs receding into a towering cloud bank as a steamship belching black smoke advances toward the viewer.
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