N is for Artist Louis Norton

Louis Doyle Norton

(1868-1940)

Louis Norton grew up in Providence, Rhode Island and after studying art in Paris at Académie Julian returned to establish his first studio there. He initially made a living painting portraits and commissions and by providing illustrations for Ladies Home Journal. By the mid 1890s, Norton had relocated to Lawrence, Massachusetts, home to his father and brother.

In 1906, Norton spent his first summer in Kennebunkport. It is unclear what specifically drew him here, but there are theories that he was influenced by his cousin Montie Graves—wife of Boston/Kennebunkport artist Abbott Graves—who was already living here, and the fact that both of Norton's parents were from nearby Portland.

Regardless of the reason, Norton became enamored of Kennebunkport and two years later built a home at Turbat's Creek for himself and his mother. He called it Mussel Lodge and opened his studio to the public each afternoon. From the porch, Norton would paint the boats, houses and children he saw, frequently giving away the paintings as gifts to his fishermen neighbors. When Norton's mother passed away in 1911, he built and moved into a smaller home just down the hill from Mussel Lodge.

Norton's preferred medium became pastels, instead of the watercolors and oils that signified his earlier works. He held public exhibitions each August and was a popular figure artistically and in social circles. In 1925, Judge Herbert Luques commissioned Norton for $400 to paint murals in his dining room depicting Kennebunkport's history.

Over the next fifteen years, Norton's problem with drinking increased, and his health and eyesight deteriorated. He left Kennebunkport briefly in 1928 to paint out West. Though his quality of life did not improve upon his return, Norton ironically painted some of his best works in the 1930s. He gifted a series of murals for the new Masonic Temple on North Street as well as the storybook friezes for the children's room of the Graves Memorial Library.

After a 50-year career, Norton died in his home in 1940 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Portland. In the town he called home for 34 years, Norton left a painted legacy reflecting the life and landscape of Kennebunkport in the early 1900s.

Based upon research of more than 250 extant Norton paintings in this region alone, The Brick Store Museum exhibited a retrospective of Norton's work in 1982.

This pastel on paper is of Booth Tarkington’s motor launch, Zantee. Tarkington was a famous author and playwright who spent his summers in Kennebunkport. Artist Louis Norton inscribed and signed the painting, “To Mr. Tarkington/ LD Norton” in the lower right. The donors of this painting purchased it out of the estate sale of Booth Tarkington’s home, “Seawood,” in 1985.

Zantee , Louis D. Norton (1868-1940), c. 1920, pastel on paper, 13 1/8” x 16 ¾.” Brick Store Museum Collection. Gift of Peter and Warren Cox, 1985. 85.15.1