Artist Waldo Peirce, known for his striking figure and powerful personality, captures his love for family, the playfulness of youth, and the feeling of Maine summers in this wonderful piece. 

The Maine State Museum is delighted to share the recent acquisition of this playful painting by renowned artist Waldo Peirce. The painting, titled— "Johnny Peirce, Little Leaguer of Searsport, Maine, Season of 1959,” includes the inscription "For Phil & Macky, from Johnny" in the lower right corner. The image is most likely of the artist's son, Jonathan Waldo Peirce, 1946-1992, who would have been twelve-years-old at the time.

Born in Bangor in 1884, Waldo Peirce served as a volunteer ambulance driver with the American Ambulance Field Service during WWI, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery at the Battle of Verdun. A member of the “Lost Generation” of artists living in 1920s Paris, Peirce held a lifelong friendship with Ernest Hemingway, traveling Europe and spending time in Cuba with the writer. Often called the “American Renoir,” Peirce was a successful and prolific painter, whose canvases are found in leading museums and collections around the world. A resident of Searsport, in his later years Peirce became more focused on his family, and his works reflected a Regionalistic influence with Maine, its people, and countryside becoming his primary subjects.