What do I know about the man who painted the murals in The Judge's dining room, Louis D. Norton? After my essay on the murals and the house ran in the New York Times in February, I heard from a professor of art and architecture at Vanderbilt University. He told he that he had been an intern at The Brick Store Museum in Kennebunk. It was the early 1980's and the museum had an exhibit on Louis D. Norton. He remembered townspeople coming to the show and recalling their own memories of the artist. It had only been 40 years since his death; for the Kennebunks, that was recent history.
The professor suggested I try to find a copy of the pamphlet written for the 1982 exhibit and said if I couldn't find one, he'd dig through his own boxes and see if he could find one.
A month ago, I wrote to the museum and asked if they might have a pamphlet from the exhibit. Today, I entered the museum for the first time and had something waiting for me.
In the distance, the mural Norton painted of the Battle of Cape Porpoise, fought near the end of the Revolution by men whose last names names are not forgotten.