Portland, Maine 04101 United States
The 1960s through the 1980s were times of deep change for Portland. Following post-World War II national trends that proposed to revitalize cities— called “urban renewal”—Portland demolished historic buildings. Union Station, a train station built in 1888 on St. John Street came down in 1961, replaced by a strip mall. Franklin Street Arterial removed entire neighborhoods, displacing communities and small businesses starting in the 1950s. Construction of the Maine Mall in South Portland in 1969 impacted Portland’s retail districts, and in 1983 when the Mall doubled in size, downtown Portland’s commerce waned.
By the early 1980s, many families moved to the suburbs, and buildings in Portland fell into disrepair. David Etnier’s photographs record this gritty time in Portland’s history, when it was on the edge of decline. At the same time, a slow infusion of musicians, writers, and artists—including Etnier—moved to downtown Portland, opening studios and businesses. Instead of turning into a dying city, Portland became cool again.
Capital investments and an explosion of new building projects followed the artistic renaissance. Greater Portland Landmarks, a nonprofit preservation organization incorporated in 1964, worked to save historic buildings, as high-rise banks, museums, national hotels, and boutique restaurants changed Portland’s skyline and fostered the city’s reputation as a destination.
Viewers of this exhibit will visit the not-so-distant past through Etnier’s photographs and personal reminiscences that document Portland’s transformation over the past 45 years, showing what changed, and what remains. The city of Portland was David Etnier’s muse. His conscious use of cropping and framing architecture, buildings, and people deepens our understanding of the shift of bust to boom happening in Portland in the 1980s.
About the Artist:
Born in 1955, Maine native David Etnier was inspired by his artist father Stephen Etnier, to produce a series of photographic portraits of Maine painters and sculptors in their studios in 1993 and 2023. Etnier worked in commercial photography, served as a Maine State Representative, and was Deputy Commissioner at Maine’s Department of Marine Resources. He lives in South Freeport and captains ferry and excursion vessels, camera in hand.
Etnier’s work appears in several books and publications, and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at the Portland Museum of Art in 2012 (Making Faces/Making Art), University of New England in 2016 (Portraits of the Artists), Cove Street Arts in 2023 (Explorations), and Maine Art Gallery in 2023 (Generations – 65th Anniversary Exhibit) and 2024 (Nocturne). His photographs are in the permanent collections of Maine Historical Society, Portland Museum of Art, Maine State Museum, Smithsonian Archives of American Art, University of New England, and numerous private collections.