22 Brewster Street. [2010, Dunlap]
[2011, Dunlap]
Edward Dusek, left, and Paul Kelly. [2011, Dunlap]
Text last updated on 3 June 2022 | Talk about paintings lining the walls! After Louis Lima and Jerome Crepeau bought this house in 2002, they discovered 130 works on Upton board — many of them impressionistic “mudhead” portrait studies — nailed in the wall cavities as insulation. They underscored the building’s use by Henry Hensche, whose Cape School of Art was quartered at 44-48 Pearl; then by James Kirk Merrick, a student of Hensche’s; then by Lois Griffel, a Hensche student who continued the school until 2000. The painter George Morrison (1919-2000), who was honored in 2022 by commemorative stamps featuring five of his canvases, was here at least one summer, in 1958.1
Lima and Crepeau salvaged all but six paintings, which they left in situ as artistic Easter eggs, for the pleasure of a future owner to discover. The owners since 2009 have been Paul Kelly and Edward Dusek, principals in Manitou Architects, whose renovations uncovered evidence that the building started as a farm outbuilding, then was converted into north-facing studios.
Rosemary Hillard wrote on 7 July 2011: I love the fact that Jerome and Louis left some “artistic Easter eggs” for future owners to discover — how perfectly Provincetown.
¶ Republished on 14 November 2023.
Footnotes
1 Provincetown Advocate, 19 June 1958, Page 2.
22 Brewster Street on the Town Map, showing property lines.