Into the Wind
A new exhibition at the Colby Museum explores the beauty and history of American weathervanes
The latest exhibition at the Colby Museum of Art encourages visitors to look up and look closely.
With Into the Wind: American Weathervanes, the Colby Museum tells a lively regional history of the weathervane with a display of more than two dozen exquisite examples of the practical and decorative devices that have adorned rooftops of houses, churches, and barns across New England since the early 19th century. Nearly all of the weathervanes on view in Into the Wind are from a private collection in Maine, and a selection of these are a promised gift to the museum.
Accompanied by an installation of folk art and folk art-inspired works from the Colby Museum’s collection, Into the Wind examines the weathervane’s symbolism, use, manufacture, and trade in the northeastern United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The exhibition highlights weathervanes as forecasting instruments, for their aesthetic majesty, and for the talents and tastes of those who created them, all against the backdrop of wide cultural resonance and appeal.
Gallery walls are painted with the silhouettes of two barns, and the vanes—horses, chickens, cows, fish, and many other forms—are mounted as three-dimensional objects away from the walls so each casts its own magical shadow; one, an eagle, is centrally placed, with directionals. Others are displayed in the upper reaches of the Lower Jetté Gallery, including those atop the painted barn silhouettes.
An approachable exhibition
Woodworkers, blacksmiths, and metalsmiths made early weathervanes, which were designed to alert their owners––farmers primarily––to changes in wind direction and weather. Farmers also used them to represent what they farm, and therefore vanes in the shape of poultry, sheep, and cows were common. In addition, they also represented community pride and industry, evidenced by many examples of racehorses, cod, and whales.
By the mid-19th century, commercial manufacturers who were accustomed to making common metal products began producing weathervanes in large quantities because of consumer demand. Their popularity flourished as advertisements for businesses, markers for churches, and design elements for private homes.
“The beauty of this exhibition is that it demystifies art for people and it’s very approachable. It’s an engaging show,” said American art expert and folk art collector Seth Thayer ’89, a former member of the Colby Museum’s Board of Governors. “People can look at weathervanes in a lot of ways—as design objects, as symbols they might identify with, or just as interesting things to look at. Kids will find these shapes interesting, and then they will go out in the real world and look for them.”
Justin McCann served as guest curator for Into the Wind. The accompanying arrangement of folk art and other works from the Colby Museum’s collection, including items from the museum’s American Heritage Collection given by Edith and Ellerton Jetté, was curated by Beth Finch, head curator, with Maria DiBari ’26. They chose work that resonates with the weathervanes through imagery of farm animals, barns, homesteads, and other settings, including a painting by Dahlov Ipcar and a wood-relief carving by Bernard Langlais.
Juliette Walker, assistant manager of exhibitions and publications, worked with the freelance designer Benjamin English to develop a design concept to contextualize weathervanes as they exist in the outside world—high atop rooftops and visible from a distance. Artist Tessa Greene O’Brien, a former Lunder Institute for American Art Fellow, painted the barn silhouettes, and Preparator Danae Lagoy produced the mounts in Colby’s sculpture studio. “It was a challenge figuring out how to mount them, but it was a fun job,” Lagoy said.
A collector’s story
Finch described the anonymous collector as an avid weathervane enthusiast who has become an advocate and expert. “He has collected them with passion for more than 40 years, and he has offered the best examples as promised gifts to Colby. We’re incredibly grateful for his generosity,” Finch said.
The collector, a Colby graduate, said he fell in love with weathervanes 45 years ago “when I went to an auction, saw a weathervane I liked, and bought it. Then I bought another. And another.”
His interest hasn’t waned.
In part, he’s attracted by the history associated with weathervanes. They tell regional stories and mark important events. There’s a weathervane in the exhibition of a woman playing tennis, inspired by Mary Ewing Outerbridge, who imported the lawn game to the United States in the early 1870s. There’s another weathervane of a writing quill, symbolizing the importance and growth of literacy in the late 19th century.
“I have always found that historical element fascinating,” he said. “That is half of it. The other half is their aesthetic appeal. Many weathervanes are really pretty. There’s a beautiful flying horse, gracefully moving through the air as it passes through a hoop. There’s a beautiful peacock. Some of them are just artistic, so I started collecting for that reason too.”
Weathervanes at Colby
Into the Wind is the latest and largest recent exhibition of weathervanes at the Colby Museum. Earlier exhibitions focused specifically on the weathervanes of farm animals and those featuring horses. Those exhibitions were based on the same private collection. The museum has other weathervanes in its collection, including one donated by Thayer. There is also a weathervane by the artist Alex Katz standing outside the museum representing his wife, Ada, the artist’s most iconic subject.
Aside from the weathervanes already in the museum collection, there are two other permanent weathervanes on Mayflower Hill.
Prominently atop Miller Library is a bronze cast replica of the sailing sloop Hero, which carried the Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin up the Kennebec River in June 1818. Accompanied by his wife, five children, and seven students, Chaplin sailed from Boston to Augusta, then took another boat to Waterville, where he founded the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, later becoming Colby.
The other Mayflower Hill weathervane is made of wrought iron, and it bears a musical staff with the opening theme of Ermanno Comparetti’s Mayflower Hill Concerto. That masterpiece usually stands on a cupola above the garage of the Osborne House, the home of President David A. Greene and his family. It is “off view” at the moment because the cupola is being repaired.
It will return to its perch in the spring.
