Cabot Lyford: Winds of Change

Cabot Lyford (1925–2016) created works of art familiar to many residents of Portsmouth, the New Hampshire Seacoast, and southern Maine, even if his name is not. His public, monumental sculptures (including four examples in Portsmouth) use a minimalist aesthetic to communicate profound messages that resonate today. His lesser-known work, as well as a trove of maquettes, sketches, and correspondence, reveals a tireless desire to create using unexpected materials, or traditional materials in unusual ways. This catalogue accompanies the first museum retrospective of Lyford’s career and brings to light the methods, materials, and accomplishments of this important but often overlooked artist.

Lyford began his creative career in the television business, but in the mid 1960s he accepted a position at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, where he would teach art until his retirement in 1986. During that time, and for the rest of his life, he was a practicing artist, participating in exhibitions and fulfilling commissions. Although he is best known for his large granite sculptures, Lyford worked in a wide variety of media including watercolor and gouache, slate, various woods, and cut aluminum. He was always searching for new ways to use materials, or letting the material speak to him. Working with laminated wood, a requirement necessitated by one of his large-scale projects, for example, led to his leveraging the same technique in smaller works. When working with granite was more than his aging, arthritic, and aching joints could tolerate, he explored slate, hardwoods, and watercolors. More than once, a sculpture began with a stone he found on a beach.

Using a treasure trove of documents and photographs preserved by Lyford’s family, Rachel Walls provides here a biographical overview of this distinguished artist. In his essay, Gerald W.R. Ward places Lyford’s art into the context of public sculpture in Portsmouth. The catalogue section illustrates some eighty examples of his finest work and provides the first rounded look at the achievements of this important New England artist.