The Art of Francis Hamabe

Writer Carl Little weaves an engaging narrative of the artist’s life and art illustrated with vintage photographs and examples of Hamabe’s witty and stylish graphic work. Paintings from the Colby and Bates College museums and the University of Maine Museum of Art are featured, along with numerous works from private collections, many reproduced for the first time.

Francis Hamabe (1917-2002)

One of Maine’s most beloved artists, Francis Hamabe was born in 1917 in Orange, New Jersey, to a Japanese father and Swedish mother. He served in World War II and attended the Rhode Island School of Design. Moving to Maine in 1947, Hamabe established himself as a sought-after painter, printmaker, ceramicist, and pupeteer. A dedicated teacher he was the first art instructor at the Farnsworth Art Museum and later taught at the University of Maine at Machias he also served as art director for Down East and Maine Life magazines and for the state’s first public television station in Orono.