Name/Title
Abandoned Quarry | Pauline Winchester Inman | Wood Engraving | 1956Description
Artist: Pauline Inman
Medium: Woodblock engraving
Circa: 1956
Old Accession Number: 1844
Description:
1 of 2 copies.
Abandoned Quarry, 1956
Wood Engraving
With a large supply of granite and easy access to coastal trade routes, Maine had a thriving quarrying industry in the nineteenth century. Washington County was known for its pink, red, and black granite, which was used in architecture and monuments all over the country. However, the industry began to decline around the 1920s, leaving abandoned quarries with remnants of creativity and destined opulence. Scraps of stone intended to build monuments to American culture were left standing where they were made, now monuments to the once thriving industry.
Abandoned Quarry depicts three stone sculptures on top of an outcrop, with a weathered quarry building below. The two sculptures on the left appear to be religious figures, originally intended to contribute to the architectural grandeur of a church or cathedral. The sculpture of the lay woman in the center looks out to sea as if to survey her land with pride, or to contemplate the purpose she never fulfilled. While the silhouetted gulls merge into the landscape as distant mountain ranges, Inman’s compositional contrasts of the natural stone coastline with the highly rendered carving of the sculptures emphasizes material metamorphosis.