PORTLAND, ME.- The Portland Museum of Art experienced its highest attended and most successful November. The popularity of the exhibition Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine drew more than 22,000 visitors and quadrupled the number of new members for the month. The PMA store partnered with local designers to create custom and limited edition Winslow Homer products that helped generate revenue double that of November 2011. Weatherbeaten stands to be the most popular fall exhibition in PMA’s history.

Due to the success of the show, the PMA’s hours will be extended until 8 p.m. on Thursdays and Saturdays, December 13 through the last day of the exhibition on December 30. Tickets are $17 for adults and reservations are recommended by calling (207) 775-6148.

“This extraordinary Winslow Homer exhibition has been a huge success for the Portland Museum of Art and has had a significant cultural and economic impact on the city of Portland, drawing thousands of visitors from all over the country,” said PMA Director Mark H.C. Bessire. “Weatherbeaten is a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see a significant number of Homer’s greatest marine paintings together in one place. Many of the works in this exhibition rarely leave their home institutions, including Fox Hunt, on loan from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which hasn’t returned to Maine since it was painted in 1893. Portland is the only venue for this show and, with only a few weeks left, people shouldn’t miss it!”

Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine showcases masterpieces that the great American artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910) created during the final decades of his life, when he lived and worked in Maine. Inspired by the rugged beauty and changeable weather along the coast at Prouts Neck, Homer painted powerful marine narratives and seascapes that capture the specificity of place with vivid intensity, while also investigating existential themes of life and death, of humankind’s relationship with the natural world. Highly admired for their originality and sense of authenticity, these paintings helped to establish an iconic image of the New England coast in the national imagination. The exhibition explores the range and complexity of Homer’s most critically acclaimed works. The featured paintings, watercolors, and etchings are drawn from private collections and museums throughout the country-including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.), and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, Massachusetts). The Portland Museum of Art is the only venue for this important exhibition, which commemorated the opening of the Winslow Homer Studio in September.