Nobska Lighthouse

George Jacobs
Author and Artist
American 1926-2002
NOBSKA LIGHT
Images, descriptions, and comparables
Home brewed Images: Rough First Cut
6102.14.1
C ONTENTS Slide
No.
Quick look
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Nobska Light viewed from shore
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Everybody’s favorite NOBSKA
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The tower emits a fixed white light, visible for 13 miles at sea
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2
Signature
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Framed
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Photography versus painting
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Register of Historic Places. Since 1828, Nobska Light has provided a familiar beacon...
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Nobsque evolves; Fog signal could be heard for 5 miles
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Photographic view of Nobska Light from the shore
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Jacob’s view of Nobska Light from the shore in a 1982 watercolor.
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Jacobs’s Nobska Beach 1983, pen and rag
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An earlier Jacobs watercolor: La Plaza del Triunfo Sevilla
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Bio from the 1990s
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The first George Jacobs was hanged, age 72, in 1692.
17
The third George Jacobs also came to a violent end, age 76, 310 years later.
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Quick Look
3
Artist: George Jacobs
(known in Woods Hole as Painter George)
Title: Nobska Light
Date Created: circa 1995
Medium: Watercolor on paper
Framed: Gold leaf bamboo
Condition: Excellent
Dimensions image: 5 in. x 7 in. | 12.7 cm x 17.8 cm
Dimensions framed: 9 in. x 11 in.| 22.9 cm x 27.9 cm
Reference: Nobska Light (aka Nobsque Light or
Nobska Point Light) was built in 1828
and added to the National Register of Historic
Places as Nobska Point Light Station in 1987.
Image 970
The lighthouse is located at the division between
Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound in Woods Hole
on the southwestern tip of Cape Cod,
The Wampanoag were the first people to arrive in the region about
10,000 years ago. The Wampanoag Nation place names echo across
much of the landscape. Nobska means “rocky point”.
Massachusetts. It overlooks Martha’s Vineyard
and Nonamessett Island.
Jacobs lived on Nobska Road, which separated the
lighthouse from the shore.
Woods Hole began as a fishing village in the early 1600s and became
the center of the whaling industry in the 1800s. Late in the century, as
the whaling industry declined, other industry moved in.
Nobska Light viewed from shore
4
The residence was occupied by the Commanding Officer of the U.S. Coast Guard Sector
Southeastern New England until 2012, when serious maintenance became needed.
Image 970
Global positioning systems and other navigational improvements have eliminated the need for a
manned lighthouse. The Town of Falmouth, a non-profit, will license the lighthouse from the
federal government and manage a museum and make renovations.
The tower emits a fixed white light, visible for 13 miles at sea
..using a fourth-order Fresnel Lens
Image 970
5
Everybody’s favorite NOBSKA
6
lower left of painting
Image 970
•  Signature
7
on lower right
Image 970
Photography versus painting
8
Image 970
Framed
9
Image 970
Register of Historic Places. Since 1828, Nobska Light has provided a familiar beacon...
10
Nobsque evolves; Fog signal could be heard for 5 miles
1828 photograph (to the left) of Nobsque Point Light, as it was known in its
early days, was built in 1828 for $2949.30. The original lighthouse was in the
typical Cape Cod-style with an octagonal tower atop a keeper’s house, which had
three rooms on the first floor and two small ones upstairs. The lantern held ten
lamps with 14” reflectors, producing a fixed white light, seventy-eight feet above
the sea.
1895 photograph (to the
left) of the Lighthouse and
Residence, the view painted
by Jacobs. The keeper’s
house, a 1½ story Cape style
wood frame, was built in two
stages. The second half, built
in 1905 is missing in the
photograph. It was built to
house the keeper and his
assistant.
Contemporary photograph (above). In 1948, a
125-foot steel radio beacon tower was erected …
and the fog signal was changed from a reed horn
to a diaphragm operated by compressed air that
sounded two-second blasts every thirty seconds.
The fog signal could be heard for five miles and
was activated by a sensor that measured the
moisture content of the air.
11
Photographic view of Nobska Light from the shore.
12
Jacob’s view of Nobska Light from the shore in a 1982 watercolor.
13
Jacobs’s Nobska Beach 1983, pen and rag
14
An earlier Jacobs’s watercolor: La Plaza del Triunfo Sevilla
15
Bio from the 1990s
16
Image 971
The first George Jacobs was hanged at age 72 in 1692."
For the full story, copy the following link in your internet browser (rather than click it) to ensure landing on the specific page:
http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/people?group.num=all&mbio.num=mb13
17
The third George Jacobs also came to a violent end, age 76, 310 years later.
Woods Hole artist killed in Pennsylvania crash
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