PORTLAND, ME.- Directors’ Cut: Selections from the Maine Art Museum Trail presents art from Maine’s most-renowned museums—bringing the best art Maine has to offer together for the first time. The exhibition is on view at the Portland Museum of Art from May 21, 2015 through September 20, 2015.

Art and culture has defined the identity of Maine since artists began visiting Monhegan Island and trekking up Mount Katahdin before Maine even became a state. This magnificent environment and the art it’s inspired has captured the public imagination for centuries, and to this day a growing number of visitors from around the world continue to affirm that Maine’s galleries, studios, and art museums are unlike any in the world. Directors’ Cut: Selections from the Maine Art Museum Trail lets us see these museums through the eyes of their directors, who have specially curated selections of Maine masterpieces from their respective museums’ collections.

The artists and artworks presented in this exhibition embody quintessentially Maine ideals of fierce independence, self-sufficiency, and a strength of character that is built from tradition, admiration, and respect for the rugged and unspoiled qualities of this land.

This is the Maine that inspired Berenice Abbott, Marsden Hartley, Winslow Homer, John Marin, Louise Nevelson, N.C. Wyeth, and Marguerite Zorach. This is the Maine that continues to inspire contemporary artists Ahmed Alsoudani, Lois Dodd, David Driskell, Robert Indiana, Alex Katz, William Pope.L, Richard Tuttle, and Jamie Wyeth.

Directors’ Cut: Selections from the Maine Art Museum Trail shares the rich cultural legacy of our state while providing a platform to highlight the visionary artists of our future. The world holds an enduring fascination with Maine, and this exhibition helps demonstrate why.

Directors’ Cut contains the following: Marsden Hartley’s artistic circle from the Bates College Museum of Art; Winslow Homer’s art and artifacts from the Bowdoin College Museum of Art; modern and contemporary Maine landscapes from the Colby College Museum of Art; highlights from the collection from the Farnsworth Art Museum; masterpieces from Monhegan Island from the Monhegan Museum of Art and History; founders of the Ogunquit art colony from the Ogunquit Museum of American Art; contemporary Maine artists from previous PMA Biennials from the Portland Museum of Art; and Berenice Abbott photographs from the University of Maine Museum of Art.