Renewed appreciation for Maud Lewis replica

At a Scallop Days committee meeting, chairman Mike Bartlett suggested approaching Ross to ask if the replica could be brought into town for the celebration. Bartlett envisioned it being central to the festival’s showcase of works by local artists.

Then at the Municipality of Digby’s Nov. 24 council meeting, deputy warden Jimmy MacAlpine talked about purchasing the replica from Ross and placing it at the Maud Lewis site in Marshalltown.

MacAlpine said that the grey steel building that now stands on the property tends to be ignored, and added that the replica better represents and honors Maud Lewis. It would also be of greater interest to tourists, he said.

The original Maud Lewis house—painted inside and out by the famous Nova Scotia folk artist—has been a significant draw for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia since it was removed from its Marshalltown home, restored, rebuilt, and displayed in Halifax.

After the deaths of Maud Lewis in 1970 and her husband Everett in 1979, their home was subject to both decay and vandalism. A group of local people who named themselves ‘the Maud Lewis Painted House Society’ lobbied and raised funds to rescue the house.

In 1984, it was sold to the province and in 1998 became a permanent exhibit at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, after a lengthy restoration and conservation project.

Around the time the province’s art gallery was restoring the original, Ross was at work building a replica. The former fisherman says he measured and took pictures of the Lewis house while it still stood in Marshalltown, and completed the replica in the late 1990s.

A grey steel house, duplicating the size of Lewis’ painted house was erected at the Marshalltown location. Its designer, world-renowned architect Brian MacKay-Lyons, chose grey metal “to convey the somber reality of Maud’s life.” That reality included few comforts, and physical disabilities.

The light that shines between the steel slats and the brightly colored staircase in the grey building are intended to represent Maud Lewis’ bright vision of the world.

Ross says he was approached by Nova Scotia Art Gallery director Bernard Riordan about placing the replica on the Marshalltown property, but was insulted when he realized the plan was to put the house behind the steel house.

In 2000, the replica was on display at Scallop Days and at Bear River’s Cherry Carnival.

In the past decade, in spite of it being tucked away at the end of a long lane, tourists have visited Ross’ Seabrook property to view the replica. He says he enjoys seeing the house in his yard and talking to fans of the folk artist.

He counts himself among those fans, and expresses regret that he never purchased a Maud Lewis painting. “I met Maud when I was about 10 years old. I was in her house two or three times. “I used to ride around on my bike and I’d pick up bottles, then cash them in for ice cream. To think, I could have saved it up and bought one of her paintings. In those days they were selling for four or five dollars.”

Today, paintings by Maud Lewis routinely sell for thousands and the house the artist lived in is the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia’s most popular exhibit.