Don Gorvett was born in Boston, MA, in 1949 and raised within its environs of Cambridge and Somerville, MA. He spent his youth at the seashore swimming, fishing, and observing the fishing-town industry. The Gorvett family eventually moved to Burlington, MA, where high school art instructor Elinor Marvin discovered his talents. Don received an extraordinary art education focused on drawing, graphic arts, and theatrical set design. With the encouragement of Elinor Marvin and the support of Ogunquit summer resident Annabelle Lewis, Don began his summer-long painting excursions to Ogunquit, Maine, starting the summer before college in 1968. Mr. Gorvett attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts through the Ford Junior Fellowship Grant. After completing graduation requirements, Mr. Gorvett moved his primary residence to Gloucester, MA, to pursue a career in painting. 

While in Gloucester, Don was introduced to Mrs. Buswell, heiress to the Stillington Hall estate. She offered the well-furnished dressing rooms in the estate’s theater as living quarters and a studio. He set up his first etching press on the stage above his rooms. During his residence at Stillington Hall, he also organized classical music concerts and private wedding events. In 1990, Mr. Gorvett made Ogunquit his full-time home, where he continued to develop his reduction woodcut technique.

In 2006, Don Gorvett opened his first gallery with a printmaking studio in downtown Portsmouth, NH, called Piscataqua Fine Arts, named after the Piscataqua River, dividing the southern boundaries of New Hampshire and Maine. In early 2020, Don moved the etching press and set up a new studio at the Beacon Marine Basin in Gloucester, MA. Don has renamed his popular Portsmouth gallery from Piscataqua Fine Arts to Don Gorvett Gallery. In Gloucester, the studio’s spacious second-floor loft at the historic marina allows him to create new work, offer workshops, and exhibit his and other artist’s work.

Don Gorvett woodcuts are in the permanent collections of public and private institutions such as the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, Andover, MA; Boston Athenaeum; Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA; Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH; Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME; Portsmouth Historical Society, Portsmouth, NH; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; and Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA.

These woodcuts express the abstract geometric shapes and distant configurations of our architecture in the Northeast. Upon the sea waters of estuaries and harbors are mirrored the play of interweaving lights and darks of buildings and piers crowned by steeples and mast tops. I am fascinated by the ghostly quality of these buildings looming out of the mists, endowed with strength and endurance. For me, historic architecture represents a bridge between one life span into another. Abandoned not by time but by those who built them, our structures remain and continue to wage war with nature’s elements.

EDUCATION - Awarded Ford Junior Fellowship to School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Graduated 1972

Don Gorvett: Waterfronts and Woodcuts, Perakos Family Cares Art Gallery at the Frederick Gunn School, Washington, CT. 2023

Society of American Graphic Artists, 88th Annual at The Old Print Shop, NY, NY. 2023 

Don Gorvett: An Ogunquit Journey 1968 to Present,The Ogunquit Heritage Museum, Ogunquit, ME. 2023

Society of American Graphic Artists, 87th Annual at The Salmagundi Club, NY, NY. 2022

Don Gorvett: Working Waterfronts, A retrospective of over sixty woodcuts, drawings, and paintings. Portsmouth Historic Society, Portsmouth, NH. 2021

CAM Connects, Objects and works of art from the Cape Ann Museum’s collection. Gloucester, MA. 2020, 2021

Cortile Gallery, 9th Annual Artists Invitational, Provincetown, MA. 2019

Master Prints & Master Printers: From the Studios of Don Gorvett & Robert Townsend, Portsmouth Public Library, Portsmouth, NH. 2019

New England Bio Labs, Art Focus, Ipswich, MA. 2019

Master Prints and Master Printers: Piscataqua Fine Arts and RE Townsend Studios, Spencer Presentation Gallery at Endicott College, Beverly, MA. 2017

Master Prints and Master Printers: Perkins Cove Gallery and RE Townsend Studios, Lewis Gallery at the Portland Public Library, Portland, ME. 2017 

Portrait of a Port, Don Gorvett: 25 Years in Portsmouth, NH, Tyco Visitors Center, Strawbery Banke Museum, Portsmouth, NH. 2016

Don Gorvett: 25 Years in Portsmouth, A Chronology of Prints and Drawings, Portsmouth Public Library, Portsmouth, NH. 2016

Urban Landscapes: Manchester and the Modern American City, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH. 2016

Don Gorvett: Woodcuts & Drawings, Cove Gallery, Wellfleet, MA. 2016

Vincent, Weaver, Gorvett: Gloucester, Three Visions, Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, MA. 2015

Showcase Solo Shows: Don Gorvett, Woodcuts & Norman West, Paintings, Ogunquit Artist Association, Ogunquit, ME. 2015

Don Gorvett and Karen Whitman, Two Contemporary Artists, The Old Print Shop, NY, NY. 2015

Perspectives, New Hampshire Institute of Art, Manchester, NH. 2014

Don Gorvett: Work & Process, Jackson Library Gallery, Berwick Academy, So. Berwick, ME. 2014

Bridging the Piscataqua, Academy Gallery, Discover Portsmouth, Portsmouth, NH. 2013

Don Gorvett Woodcut: Blocks and Prints. Salem State University, Winfisky Gallery, Salem, MA. 2013

Master/Mentor - Mentor/Master,  A Fine Thing: E.T. Pollock’s Fine Art, Portland, ME. 2012

Don Gorvett: Woodcuts and Drawings. Patty & Jay Baker Naples Museum of Art, Naples, FL. 2010

Past and Present, Woodcuts by Don Gorvett, Carol Grillo Gallery, Endicott College, Beverly, MA. 2010

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS & PURCHASES

Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, MA. 1996, 1999, 2023 

Portsmouth Historical Society, Portsmouth, NH. 2021

Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Estrellita Karsh Collection, Boston, MA. 2002, 2016, 2018

Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA. 2014, 2017

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University, Cambridge, United Kingdom 2016

Farnsworth Museum of Art, Rockland, ME. 2014

Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA. 2014

Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA. 2014

Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA. 2013

Duxbury Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA. 1991, 2012

Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA. 2007

Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME. 1993, 2001, 2006

Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH. 2006

The Old Print Shop, New York, NY. 2004

Providence Equity Partners Inc, Providence, RI. 2002

Harvard Law School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. 2001

Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA. 2000, 2001, 2004

Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME. 1998, 1999 

United Technologies, Hartford, CT. 1997

Cape Ann Museum Gloucester, MA. 1996

Museum of Fine Arts, Hanoi, Vietnam. 1992 

Duxbury Art Complex Museum, print purchase, Duxbury, MA. 1991

Kon-Tiki Illustrated Book, National Geographic Library, Washington, D.C. 1972

GALLERY AFFILIATIONS & ORGANIZATION

Don Gorvett Gallery 2006 to Present

Society of American Graphic Artists, NY, NY. 2017 to present.

Old Print Shop, NY, NY. 2006 to present.

Ogunquit Art Association, President 1987, Ogunquit, ME. 1986 to present.

Hutchens Gallery, Perkins Cove, Ogunquit, ME. 2020

Exeter Fine Crafts, Exeter, NH. 2014 - 2017

League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, Concord, NH. 2015 - 2017

Black Bear Fine Arts, Ogunquit, ME, 2010 - 2011, 2015 -2017

Cove Gallery, Wellfleet, MA. 2016

Cuckle Button Gallery, Perkins Cove, Ogunquit, ME. 2010, 2014

Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, MA. 2014

Gravure Gallery, Gloucester, MA. 2009 -2010

Bowersock Gallery, Provincetown, MA. 2007-2013

Hay Gallery, Portland, ME. 2002

Acacia Gallery, Gloucester, MA. 1998

Wohlfarth Gallery, Washington D.C. 1997

West End Gallery, Gloucester, MA. 1997

Artists Circle Limited, Potomac, MD. 1995-96

Point Gallery, York Harbor, ME. 1994-95

Matrix Gallery, Provincetown, MA. 1994

Boston Printmakers, Boston, MA. Board Member 1986-2007

Frost Gully Gallery, Portland, ME. 1993

O’Farrell Gallery, Brunswick, ME. 1993

Arden Gallery, Boston, MA. 1993

Nancy Barrett Gallery, Portsmouth, NH. 1990-2006

New Hampshire Art Association, Portsmouth, NH. 1986

Union of Maine Visual Artists, Portland, ME. 1984

Copley Society, Boston, MA. 1976