Bill Stonebreaker spent 32 years managing packaging plants. He left that career to do something that had been waiting a long time — build a gallery around his mother’s paintings.
Alicia J. Stonebreaker was born in Poland in 1925. She trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan and the Kassel Art Academy in Germany, surviving the war years in Europe before meeting an American serviceman who brought her to the States. She settled in Maine, fell in love with the coast, and spent years painting it — the rockbound shores of Monhegan Island, the tidal flats at Harpswell, the quiet inlets around Reid State Park and Biddeford Pool. Watercolors, oil paintings, pen and ink, pencil. Over 125 documented works.
She died in 1976.
Alicia J. Stonebreaker
Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan and the Kassel Art Academy, Germany. Known for Maine seascapes and coastal landscapes — Monhegan Island, Harpswell, Reid State Park, Biddeford Pool, Westport Island. She brought adult plein air classes to Maine State Parks during her time here. Over 125 original works documented.
For a long time, most of that work stayed private. Prints were made, a small following found its way to them, but there wasn’t a real home for it. In 2011, Bill walked away from industry and founded the Alicia J. Stonebreaker Fine Art Gallery — starting with 18 of her originals, now grown to a full catalog of archival giclee prints and 5x7 greeting cards, available online and, now, on the walls in Edgecomb.
The choice to bring the work to the Artist Collective makes a kind of geographic sense. Alicia painted the same coastline that’s visible from the gallery deck. The Sheepscot River, the rocky shore, the light off the water on a clear morning — she was here. Her subjects are here. The prints on the wall at 727 Boothbay Rd are the same Maine she was looking at fifty years ago.
Bill describes the work the way someone describes a responsibility he takes seriously and doesn’t want to rush. The prints are archival. The cards are well-made. He answers questions about his mother and her training and the individual paintings with specificity, because each one has a story behind it and he knows them.
Framing is available on request. The prints come in multiple sizes. What doesn’t vary is the source material — original paintings made by someone who knew how to look at this coast, and spent years doing it.