Portsmouth Trip Overview
Portsmouth is know for its performing and visual art scene. Our perfectly-sized city is famous for its phenomenal architecture and historic preservation, our marvelous food scene, and the beautiful 16 miles of New Hampshire coastline.
On this tour, you’ll discover the most unique hip scene in the neighborhoods of Portsmouth and the street art/architecture is not one you’ll want to miss. What was once a bland waterfront industrial area is now home to Georgian, Federal and Colonial-style historic houses, famous art galleries, many music venues and stunning public art displays.
On any given day, this city is buzzing as people far and wide flock to the hip restaurants, breweries, parks & gardens. Portsmouth is a living piece of art with its rotating murals, sculptures, & ever-changing landscape. You’ll learn about the world-renowned street artists, their eclectic styles, & how they unite to create collective masterpieces of urban art. On this tour, you’ll see all that makes Portsmouth.
Additional Info
Duration: 2 hours
Starts: Portsmouth, United States
Trip Category: Walking & Biking Tours >> Bike & Mountain Bike Tours
Explore Portsmouth Promoted Experiences
What to Expect When Visiting Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States
Portsmouth is know for its performing and visual art scene. Our perfectly-sized city is famous for its phenomenal architecture and historic preservation, our marvelous food scene, and the beautiful 16 miles of New Hampshire coastline.
On this tour, you’ll discover the most unique hip scene in the neighborhoods of Portsmouth and the street art/architecture is not one you’ll want to miss. What was once a bland waterfront industrial area is now home to Georgian, Federal and Colonial-style historic houses, famous art galleries, many music venues and stunning public art displays.
On any given day, this city is buzzing as people far and wide flock to the hip restaurants, breweries, parks & gardens. Portsmouth is a living piece of art with its rotating murals, sculptures, & ever-changing landscape. You’ll learn about the world-renowned street artists, their eclectic styles, & how they unite to create collective masterpieces of urban art. On this tour, you’ll see all that makes Portsmouth.
Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product
Stop At: Prescott Park, 105 Marcy St next to Portsmouth Harbor, Portsmouth, NH 03801-4616
Cabot Lyford was born in Pennsylvania in 1925, and raised in a small town in New York. In 1963 he began teaching painting, sculpture, and art history at Phillips Exeter Academy, where he would retire as chairman of the Art Department 23 years later. His whale in Prescott Park is now iconic to our town. His intent was just to share something he saw in the rock, and to evoke “the feeling of a whale.”
He carved the whale from a large piece of Australian black granite. It had been imported when a local high-rise was going up and he bought their leftovers. From it he also created our second piece, “My Mother the Wind.” Though not his biggest creation, she does weigh in at a whopping 7 tons. She is my favorite, and he told me she is his, too.
There is a relationship between the portrait reliefs of Ensign Charles Emerson Hovey (1885-1911) had died in 1913 and Charles in 1911.
Ensign Hovey was a war hero, born in Portsmouth and killed in the Philippines in 1911.
Duration: 15 minutes
Stop At: Four Tree Island, Peirce Island Rd, Portsmouth, NH 03801
The statue is a tribute to all of the women who came here seeking safety and security and also helped build our towns. In his sculpture, they are not forgotten. The inscription on the base remains: “For those who sailed here to find a new life.”
The sculpture was carved from the same black granite used to create “Fisherman’s Luck” (the whale in Prescott Park) “It struck me that there was an endless number of women who had immigrated here, people like my grandmother, who are never mentioned … I remember him saying that the sculpture was essentially an anti-war protest since it depicted a mother and child fleeing from war. He liked that it was placed in front of the Portsmouth Navy yard.”
Duration: 5 minutes
Stop At: Vaughan Mall, Between Congress & Hanover Sts, Portsmouth, NH 03801
The mural in blue hues depicting several humpback whales was painted in 1993 by internationally renowned marine artist Robert Wyland and has deteriorated over the last decade. Its pockmarked surface faces the Worth parking lot and still draws admiring looks, but its days of glory are behind it.
Artist Robert Wyland painted 100 murals worldwide as part of an effort to share his love of marine life and his message in support of conservation.
The first of Wyland’s walls was dedicated in 1981 in Laguna Beach, Calif., and the last was dedicated in 2008 in Beijing, China.
In 1992, Wyland’s mural “Planet Ocean” in Long Beach, Calif., was named by Guiness Book as the world’s largest.
Whaling Walls painted at New England sites include “Whales off the Coast of Maine” in Portland, “Stellwagon Bank” in Boston, “Great Whales of New Bedford” in Massachusetts, “The Great Sperm Whales” in New London, Conn., and “Finback Whales” in Providence, R.I., which has since been destroyed.
Duration: 5 minutes
Stop At: Shalimar India, 80 Hanover St, Portsmouth, NH 03801, USA
To celebrate 27 years in business in downtown Portsmouth, Shalimar India owner Harbhajan Singh wanted to thank the community with a gift that would bring joy, said his daughter Kulbir Kaur.
That gift, a mural of mandalas on two walls of the restaurant, was completed last week, hand-painted by Shalimar India patron, muralist and bartender Kenley Darling. With painting partner Scott Chasse of New York, Darling had previously painted murals for Earth Eagle Brewings and The Wilder restaurant in Portsmouth. Their mural work can also be found in Brooklyn and Woodstock, New York, as well as South Boston and Allston, Massachusetts.
They work as a team under the no-ego name Signature Unknown, which they use to sign their murals. Darling said she’s influenced in part by folk art and those craftspeople historically have not signed their work.
Duration: 5 minutes
Stop At: Oar House, 55 Ceres St, Portsmouth, NH 03801-3779
This street art mural depicts the head of a massive shark emerging out of the ground and it approaches a white sea bird that is perched atop a window in the Granite State Minerals building.
Shark Toof chooses the shark for his alter ego. Fifteen-foot-tall shark heads, mouths gaping with a jumble of wicked-looking teeth, oozing slimy goo, gaze with hungry eyes at pedestrians strolling along the Harbor Riverwalk. Their neon coloring—green, red, and blue—glow day and night. Inside the museum, Shark Toof has an exuberant room-size installation of New Hampshire junk tagged in huge, neon green and pink letters. Across from that is a series of wooden panels painted in a classic comic-book style, featuring Shark Toof navigating the hostile world as a sharp-toothed hero. Tagging, phonetic spelling, and emphasizing his street name in his work connect Shark Toof directly to his graffiti roots.
Duration: 5 minutes
Stop At: Mr. Kim’s, 107 State Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801, USA
Marisa Kang, a Stratham resident, with a Button Factory artist’s studio for the past seven years, Kang said the tiger is an homage to the way tigers are depicted in traditional Korean paintings. She noted she and the restaurant’s chef Gary Kim are both Korean, the restaurant menu is inspired by Korean comfort food and the subject of her mural is “artistically in my culture.”
Kang said she’s originally from New Jersey and is a self-taught artist.
Duration: 5 minutes
Stop At: The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St, Portsmouth, NH 03801-6606
The Chestnut Street Arch will raise awareness for this part of downtown and pay tribute to Portsmouth’s architectural heritage.”
The arch is 37 feet high and 35.5 feet wide, weighs 10,000 pounds and was made from steel and aluminum, then coated with bronze. The arch was finished with a copper patina and will develop “verdigris” over time.
“Think Statue of Liberty or Memorial Bridge,” he explained. The Music Hall is donating the arch as public art to the city, fully funding the design, construction, installation and ongoing maintenance. Bohanan said the installation was done by Altus Engineering and JSN Associates, both of Portsmouth.
“The historic structures of Portsmouth feature hand-carved elements that have inspired this arch such as: a building’s threshold; the organic curl of a furniture pediment; even the nuts, bolts, and rivets of Seacoast bridges and maritime vessels,” according to The Music Hall.
Duration: 5 minutes
Stop At: African Burying Ground, 386 State St, Portsmouth, NH 03801-4035
The monument occupies a pedestrian area between State and Court streets and includes:
-Entry Piece with a sculpture of an African woman and an African male slave
-The Petition Line on the ground with words from a 1779 Petition for freedom by twenty slaves from Portsmouth
-Ceremonial Burial Cover, a circular lid sealing the underground vault where the remains were reinterred
-8 Community Figures
-Decorative Railing with elements of Kinte cloth motif
Duration: 10 minutes
Stop At: Cup of Joe Cafe & Bar, 31 Market St, Portsmouth, NH 03801, USA
These beautiful painted murals
Duration: 5 minutes
Stop At: Rock Street, Rock St, Portsmouth, NH 03801, USA
Relocated the artwork of Peter Happny, a Rock Street area resident and local blacksmith to a frame and threshold piece created by Happny and local artist Jane Fithian.
Happny agreed to relocate his original artwork into a newly fabricated frame and have it installed as a threshold piece at the Rock Street entrance. Fithian collaborated with Happny on the framed art.
“It’s a beautiful addition to the public art space that Portsmouth promotes in many areas of the city,” Blalock said. “With the playground and greenery improvements and the repositioning of Peter Happny’s distinguished artwork to a visually prominent place within the park, Rock Street Park is revitalized to serve the neighborhood’s current and future needs for safe, passive green space enjoyment and family play activities.”
The renovations are so nice that they’ve opened up the park for more sun and visibility, and that the park is a more conducive, welcoming place for children to play.
Duration: 5 minutes
Stop At: Vaughan Mall, Between Congress & Hanover Sts, Portsmouth, NH 03801
Steampunk art and design is the fusion of history + art + technology
This metal sculpture by Maui-based artist Jeanne Givens was installed in the Vaughan Mall in 2010, and is titled, “Ingenuity.” The piece begs for interaction, but we think has been installed in a way that prevents the public from doing so. It is upon a granite curb, between two trees, and off to the side. We think it is competing for attention.
The human head she created at the front of her sculpture with tools emerging from it like an industrial Medusa, centered in a giant keyhole, is another nod to engineering. The bridge between form and function, materials and methods, thought and action, art, and work, woman, and world.
Duration: 5 minutes
