New Bedford Mourns Loss Of Artist Arthur Moniz

New Bedford was blessed to have an artist like Arthur Moniz. For decades, Mr. Moniz' eyes looked at both the ordinary and the extraordinary on the Southcoast and created art.

Too many of us hurry by these picturesque Southcoast scenes on the way to work..taking them for granted...but for Arthur, these scenes were his work.

A lonely dingy tied to a Dartmouth pier, a proud lighthouse standing guard over Mattapoisett Harbor, the noble Fairhaven High School--the castle on the hill--the legacy of Henry Huttleston Rogers, but captured by Arthur Moniz.

Moments in time that go unnoticed by the rest of us were magically frozen in time by pen, by pencil, by ink, by paint, by brush, by paper, by the careful hands of Arthur Moniz.

"I try to convey a feeling of quiet and calm in a world of noise and fast pace: a peacefulness that comes from being alone but not lonely. I like the structures which seem to stand with dignity, the test of time, the textures of old wood, the bark of trees, rocks and such."  --Arthur Moniz

There are two pieces from Arthur Moniz hanging in our home.  I am by NO MEANS a person who knows a thing about art.  I don't smoke pipes and drink expensive wine at art shows.  But what I have always appreciated was the raw beauty of Southcoast.  I didn't grow up around here.

I grew up in Tewksbury, a landlocked suburb of Boston.  While Tewksbury is a very nice town and a great place to grow up, I never saw a lighthouse or a fishing boat on the way to school.  So, when I moved down to the Southcoast more than 20 years ago, I was amazed by how many everyday scenes looked like they should have been in a painting.

Arthur Moniz saw the Southcoast with that same eye.  Although I never met him, I often felt connected to him through his art.  He saw art in the same local things I did.

I once found a painting that Mr. Moniz did of the homes on the Mattapoisett waterfront.  I felt honored to have once lived in one of the homes that Arthur Moniz painted.

Arthur Moniz was not just New Bedford.  Arthur Moniz was the cobblestones of William Street.  He was the General Store in Marion.  He was the crying seagull at Mishaum Point in Dartmouth.  And now Arthur Moniz has grander pictures to sketch with his pen and ink.