Paintings by East Boothbay artists Andrea Peters and Don Demers, and Monhegan artist Kevin Beers are headed to the prestigious New Britain Museum of Art in New Britain, Conn. The paintings are part of the coastal-themed collection donated by Charles and Irene Hamm. The Hamm gift consists of 165 paintings and $1 million in financial support for the collection.

“I was thrilled to be included in the Hamm Collection and then in American Coastal Art, the book of their collection,” Peters said, “but to be represented at a museum as extraordinary as the New Britain is one of the greatest honors of my career.”

Local gallery owners Dennis and Marty Gleason, who represent both Beers and Peters, were instrumental in supplying a number of the paintings for the Hamm collection, including one of the collection’s centerpieces, Fairfield Porter’s elegant watercolor “Dirigo Island.” The Gleasons were also responsible for providing the Hamms with examples by Andrew Winter, James Fitzgerald, Walter Farndon, Sears Gallagher, and many others.

When Charles Hamm decided to fund a book of his collection, he turned to his friends the Gleasons to produce it for him. The Gleasons immediately tuned to Genetta and Melville McLean of Newcastle, Maine, to accomplish this task. Genetta, a published arts writer and former museum director, provided artist essays for the book, and Melville, a well-known art photographer, made the photographs.

Genetta McLean writes that, “For more than three decades, Charles and Irene Hamm have pursued their own quest to answer artist Robert Henri’s famous question, ‘Why do we love the sea?’ During this time they have carefully gathered a superb collection of more than 160 paintings, drawings, and prints by 91 artists, spanning several centuries.”

“American Coastal Art: The Collection of Charles J. and Irene Hamm” was privately printed in 2011. Copies of the book will accompany the gift of art to the New Britain Museum. The museum plans to announce the Hamms’ gift in early 2014, at which time the paintings themselves will be transferred to the museum.

The paintings by Andrea Peters and Kevin Beers will join a museum collection that already includes some of the most important American paintings ever made, including works by George Bellows, Robert Henri, and Rockwell Kent, all of whom painted on Monhegan Island in the early part of the 20th century.

To see paintings by both Peters and Beers, as well as by Andrew Winter, Fairfield Porter, and James Fitzgerald, visit Gleason Fine Art at 31 Townsend Avenue in Boothbay Harbor. The gallery is open year-round.