From the State House

Women are what’s missing from state’s portrait collection

By Victoria Wallack

Arba Eugene Powers of Houlton, who apparently didn’t do much in life to deserve having his portrait hung in the State House, is finally about to make history.

His picture will be the first one ever to be taken down and given to someone else to take care of, and his passing has renewed an old debate about whether more relevant portraits - and more women - should be hung in the State House halls. Legislative leaders were told last week that Powers is going to a better place - the Houlton Historical Society.

“They are looking forward to him,” said J.R. Phillips, director of the Maine State Museum. Powers, identified as an actor who could feign a good British accent, is being pushed out because he doesn’t fit with the theme of the collection, which includes 139 portraits of political, military or judicial leaders with ties to Maine. Only three are women and two of them are wives of governors.

The third is U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House and Senate, who made her mark when she took on Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his anti-communist crusade.

As Powers goes out the door he’s actually already in storage in the Maine State Museum, a short walk from the State House he could help shake things up.

“There’s an awful lot of portraits in the Statehouse that ought to go,” said Sen. John Martin, D-Aroostook, who represents Powers’ old stomping ground. “There’s important women in this state,” Martin, said, suggesting a review be done to see if other portraits could find homes in local historical societies to make more room. “In the long run, you could put some other people up that have a lot more signifi - cance to the state.”

Some women candidates who have been suggested include Beverly Daggett, the state’s first female Senate president; Libby Mitchell, the first female speaker of the House; and Leigh Saufl ey, the first female chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

“I think we need more women,” said Maine State Museum curator Deanna Bonner-Ganter, who said the collection was largely put together during a time when it was commonly held that the “place of the woman is in the home.” “Now that has to change,” Bonner-Ganter said.

Phillips agreed the current collection is dated.

“They’re gentlemen of a certain age and type,” he said, leaving the impression “They’re just a lot of old politicians.” But getting rid of them won’t be easy.

“Each time you look at them individually, they become more interesting,” at least to someone, he added, making it tough to cull people out.

The only new portraits that come in on a regular basis are those of governors, who automatically get hung once they’re out of office. The most recent, ending with former Gov. Angus King, hang on the third fl oor and are rotated once a new portrait is added to the collection. The entire 149-piece State House collection, including 10 non-portraits, is worth just over $1.5 million, valued more for its historic versus market value. The collection started with a copy of a portrait of George Washington at Dorchester Heights, where the first president is standing next to his horse with its back end facing the painter. The original was done by well-known portrait artist Gilbert Stuart, and it is still not clear from records whether the state ever paid for the copy.

Two original Gilbert Stuart portraits of the state’s first governor, William King, and his wife Ann, are in the governor’s office placed there over the years for safe keeping. Another valuable painting, Charles Codman’s “View of the Statehouse,” is in the governor’s cabinet room. A portrait of Abraham Lincoln hangs in the Senate nearby his first-term vice president, Hannibal Hamlin of Hampden. The State House in Augusta is open to the public 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday.