WILD IN MAIN; 'NEIL WELLIVER: A PRINT RETROSPECTIVE' ON DISPLAY AT UNIVERSITY MUSEUM

Works by a nationally known printmaker fascinated with the wildness of Maine are currently on display at the University Museum.

"Neil Welliver: A Print Retrospective" includes 25 large prints in a variety of media completed between 1973 and 2000.

Welliver, a retired professor who has lived in Maine the past 25 years, became nationally known in the 1960s. His work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Modern Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among other museums.

In her book accompanying the exhibition, "Neil Welliver: Prints, 1973-1995," Ruth E. Fine says the artist is continuing the landscape tradition of 19th century artists such as Albert Pinkham Ryder and Winslow Homer, a tradition carried on in the 20th century by Marsden Hartley and John Mann. "Homer's attraction to wildlife is paralleled by Welliver's to deer, fish and waterfowl," she writes. "Hartley's best known Maine subjects are its mountains, and Mann's the sea; Welliver's are the woods and the streams."

Welliver is a former professor at Yale University and former chairman of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts.

The exhibit continues through Sept. 30 at the University Museum. Hours are 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday.