With its rugged shoreline, magnificent Cathedral Woods, and rustic fishing village, Monhegan Island in the Gulf of Maine has long been a haven for artists drawn to the splendor of its ocean vistas and picturesque wildlands and for ecologists fascinated by its complex natural history. Over the last two centuries, artists and photographers have observed pastureland recolonized by white spruce, those white spruce devastated by parasitic dwarf mistletoe infestation, and, today, deciduous trees—birch, aspen and maple—coming to dominate declining white spruce woodlands. Scientists, too, have documented change on Monhegan, drawing upon the methodologies of forest ecology to describe what came before and to elucidate mechanisms shaping the trajectories of forest succession.

The extraordinary natural resilience displayed by the Monhegan Wildlands is only possible thanks to conservation-minded islanders, no one more so than Theodore Edison, who acquired much of the island outside of the village and conveyed it back to island residents with the formation of the Monhegan Associates. The broad arc of events on Monhegan—human settlement, the formation and abandonment of pastureland, forest recovery, and the critical importance of land conservation—are mirrored elsewhere along the Maine coast and the greater New England region. The story of Monhegan Island, however, is uniquely well told by artists, ecologists, and community members alike.

Monhegan’s history offers lessons for us all. This exhibition brings together artworks, objects and representations of ecological inquiry, and historical documents and photographs to chart forest conversion and recovery on the island. Milestone stewardship decisions animate the timeline as they set the island on the course to its present state of incipient deciduous stands set off against stately old-growth conifer forests. When given the opportunity, New England forests exhibit a remarkable ability to renew themselves; this is perhaps nowhere better demonstrated than Monhegan Island.

This exhibition is co-curated by Barry Logan, Samuel S. Butcher Professor in the Natural Sciences and Chair of Biology Department, Bowdoin College, Jennifer Pye, Director of the Monhegan Museum of Art & History, and Frank Goodyear, Co-Director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. It is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by Rizzoli Electa.