Fish Tales 2: Lynn Beach Painters

This article was submitted by Anne Driscoll.

The is hosting the second talk in a just-launched community lecture series called “Fish Tales from the Fish House” with a talk on the Swampscott/Lynn Beach Painters by art teacher and artist Anita Balliro on  Wednesday, June 6 at 7 p.m.

The program is co-sponsored by ARTS (Arts Resources for the Town of Swampscott), a non-profit whose mission is to improve the quality of life in Swampscott by fostering lifelong appreciation of and participation in visual, literary, and performing arts within the community.

The talk and video will be held at the Fish House at 425 Humphrey St. The event is free and open to the public but reservations are requested. A cash bar will also be available. For more information and to make your reservation, call 781.962.5587.

“Our first lecture kicked off with and it was a great success,” said Steve Speranza, Swampscott Yacht Club rear commodore. “We are pleased and excited to follow that by having Anita share her knowledge about the American Impressionist painters that flourished along our shores. Swampscott has always been a fishing community, but it also has been an active art colony – and the two were very much related.”

Balliro, who teaches art at Swampscott High School, will discuss how the fisherman from Swampscott provided compelling subjects for plein air artists who set up their easels along the shore.

The works of the Swampscott/Lynn Beach Painters are highly regarded and very collectible.

“These artists, such as William Partridge Burpee, C.E.L. Green, Edward Burrill and Charles H. Woodbury, were accomplished American Impressionists working here in our midst, although many had trained in Paris,” says Balliro, who is a member of ARTS.

The Swampscott Yacht Club is housed at the Fish House, which was built in 1896, is on the National Historic Register of Historic Places and is the only municipal fish house on the East Coast.

The lecture series was conceived of, in part, to share the richness of community life and the history of coastal Swampscott, as well as introduce community members to the treasured Fish House.

The Swampscott Yacht Club is a volunteer club founded in 1933 for the purpose of promoting yachting and sailboat racing. Located on the second floor of the Fish House, there are more than 200 members, about half of whom are boaters, enjoying fishing, sailing, power boating, kayaking or rowing. Membership costs as little as $340 per year.