2022.01.04.1a

Bernard Cowan, son of Bella and Harold Cowan, inherited this artwork from their collections. His mother, Bella, passed away in Jan of 2020 at the age of 100 years.His parents owned Sams Place in Saco which had a small frame shop and led to contact with several local community artists. Bella and Harold Cowan moved to Saco in 1964 from Bangor. Originally owning Sam's Place on Alfred Street in Biddeford, they relocated to Main Street, Saco in 1968, where they became very involved in the local downtown community. Here is what Bernard writes of the donations and artists: "When we bought Sam's Place on Alfred Street in Biddeford in 1964, diagonally across the street behind Herve Binette's Barber Shop at the corner of Bacon St. and Alfred St., A Mrs.Painchaud had opened a small maternity clothing shop. Her husband, Armand, then retired, drove her to the shop each day and walkred around the area until it was time to drive her home. One day, he wandered into Sam's Place and began chatting with my father and mother and me. He was very entertaining, seemed to know so much about so many things. Eventually, he probably told us his life story. He and his brother, Andre had grown up in Biddeford. Armand was naturally "gifted" artistically and one of his gifts was the ability to copy drawings "to scale" without the use of instruments. In the early days of motion pictures, local exhibitors began assembling show places and dressing them up, mostly with exotic themes. Somehow, Armand learned how to create the decor scenery using hot wax tempera. Then he and his brother, Andre, made their way throughout New England to wherever the movie palaces were being built. Eventually they came back to Biddeford. Andre went into the business of house painting. I don't know what Armand did then, but eventually he found work at the Portsmouth Navel Shipyard, where his copying talents were prized and utilized. During WWII, he was kept busy copying maps. When we met him, he was retired. We had small art supply department in the store and he bought Conte pastel pencils, which he used to make wonderful drawings. My father had just added custom picture framing to the store to augment our clientele. My father asked Mr. Painchaud if he could copy the scene from our china pattern (Silver Birch by Royal Albert, I think). Mr Painchaud said "yes," and they were off and running. The picture I donated was the result of that collaboration. I'm fairly certain the Painchaud brothers were somehow related to. the man who founded and led the locally famous Painchaud Band for many years, but I don't knew the exact details."