Lending grace and delight to daily activities, his paintings show women
celebrating spring with forsythia, calling in their cats at dusk,
gossiping, planting trees, or sunbathing sans clothing. Men sip their
morning coffee, repair windows, gather fishing gear and wait for the fog
to lift. Mermaids, sheep, and sleeping sailors populate rugged,
elemental scenes. And always, soaring overhead in the seascapes for
which Irvine is best-known, there are gulls, whose cries, soaring
flights, and calculated stillness captivate the painter. Irvine moved to
Maine in 1968 and was immediately drawn to the fishing villages of Corea
and Jonesport, whose tidy houses reminded him of the white farms dotting
the green hills of Scotland, where he grew up. William Irvine: At Home
joins William Irvine: A Painter's Journey in establishing Irvine as a
Maine and American master.