Hooked! The Reel Art of Frank Stick
On October 1, 2009, the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island will become one of the few institutions in the world to exhibit marine paintings by renowned artist and conservationist Frank Stick (1884-1966). Some of the works to be shown at the Aquarium were last seen in public at the Musée Océanographique de Monaco in 1988.
Hooked! The Reel Art of Frank Stick focuses on his watercolors of fish, on loan from the Outer Banks History Center (OBHC) in Manteo. The exhibition celebrates the 20th anniversary of the OBHC and runs through December.
Stick, a student of Howard Pyle and colleague of N.C. Wyeth, was one of the most popular and prolific American illustrators of the early 20th century. He was also a lifelong sportsman, a founder of the Izaak Walton League, and co-author of the first book on surf fishing.
Stick visited the undeveloped Outer Banks of North Carolina on a fishing trip in the mid-1920s. Like many before and since, he was hooked. Despite the area’s lack of roads, bridges, and electricity, he gave up commercial art and moved with his family to the Banks. Over the next 37 years, he played a major role in local economic growth (one of his subdivisions became the Town of Southern Shores) and the stabilization of the beaches. He was also involved in the creation of the Wright Brothers National Monument, the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, Cape Hatteras National Seashore and the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.
When he returned to his easel in semi-retirement, Stick concentrated on two subjects that he knew well: fish and fishing. A planned field guide never took shape, but he continued to paint until a few weeks before his death.
Stick’s early work had been scattered, but most of the fish paintings went to his son David (1919-2009) who was himself an eminent historian and author. In 1981 the University of North Carolina Press published a majority of the paintings in a book entitled An Artist’s Catch. Six years later, David Stick donated his library, his papers and 324 of his father’s paintings to the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources to form the nucleus of the Outer Banks History Center.
The OBHC, a regional archives and research library administered by the N.C. State Archives, is located at Roanoke Island Festival Park in Manteo. In addition to the Stick paintings, the Center’s holdings comprise nearly 300,000 manuscripts, photographs, books and maps. For more information, contact the Center at (252) 473-2655 or by e-mail at obhc@ncdcr.gov.
This art exhibition is included in Aquarium admission. Visit www.ncaquariums.com or call 252-473-3494 or 1-866-332-3475 for more information about Hooked! and the many other Aquarium exhibits and programs.