In the little town of Solon, Maine resides a little church called the South Solon Meeting House, referred to as “Maine’s Sistine Chapel” by students of nearby Colby College. The house has earned the moniker for good reason: in the 1950s, artists filled the interior of the building with inspiring murals that have drawn in crowds for decades.  “I fell in love with the place, because I have studies frescoes all my life,” said Véronique Plesch, a Colby professor of art. The site is now gaining attention from a new website by Colby students that highlights the meeting house’s beautiful frescoes.

The church building dates from 1842 but by 1951 it was in a state of disrepair. Margaret Day Blake, a former student at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture invited young artists into the space to beautify it. 13 artists filled the place up between the years of 1952 to 1956, painting scenes that pay homage to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper and other biblical scenes such as the binding of Isaac and Noah’s flood. The space remains open to the public during the day. Like the Sistine Chapel for which it is named, images of the meeting house’s interior show a building brimming from head to toe with idyllic paintings, though in a style slightly more abstract than what Michaelangelo would have dabbled with.  There is Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord as described in the Bible. There is also a more modern scene involving members of the community surrounding a model of the South Solon Meeting House, possibly reflecting the time prior to the building’s construction. It’s a rare beauty that inspires a love of art in the local residents.

The site still means something to the original artists as well, though very few are still surviving. Sigmund Abeles of New York City and Sidney Hurwitz of Newton, Massachusetts are the only two remaining artists alive and are both in their nineties. “It’s a very, very special place, and it was a unique experience,” said Abeles. Hurwitz recalled the time fondly. “We would go out there and paint and then take a lunch break in the cemetery behind the building. It was a very idyllic time. I very much enjoyed it.”