Exploring Maine and the North Shore, ca. 1907-19
After returning from Europe in 1907, Maurice continued to paint in Boston and the North Shore, while expanding his range into Maine and New Hampshire. He would often stay with friends in Annisquam or Gloucester or travel with Charles to Ogunquit or Brooksville, Maine.
Maurice’s North Shore scenes of parks and beaches drew from vantage points around the Massachusetts coastal towns of Salem, Marblehead, Cohasset, Revere Beach, Nahant, and Beachmont, where he sketched throughout his working life. Sometimes Maurice took a view toward the beach houses or made swings or rafts central to his compositions, evident in Bath Houses, Annisquam, ca. 1919, but primarily concentrated on crowds of passersby and pleasure seekers along the sweep of clear beach and sea, as in North Shore, ca. 1907-10, and Neponset Bay, ca. 1910-13.
In the summer of 1908, Maurice exhibited several paintings in the annual exhibition of contemporary art at Poland Spring Art Gallery in South Poland, Maine and created a number of coastal works while in the area that were exhibited the following year at MacBeth Galleries. These Maine works share stylistic similarities to his St. Malo oils of 1907 and after, employing abstract geometric shapes and regularized patterns of brushstrokes to reinforce strong horizontal and vertical lines of land, sea, and architecture. When Maurice applied this style to New England scenes, such as Maine Barn, ca. 1910-13, and Summer Hotel, Maine, ca. 1914-15, the quaintness of the local architecture and the picturesqueness of the hilly coastline were cast into relief by the lively, decorative patterning of vibrantly colorful brushstrokes.