When I undertook this project, besides it’s vast enormity, I found there to be no solidified lists of American lighthouses or more specific North American Lighthouses. There were websites for lighthouses of America and artwork of lighthouses. But I could not find a definitive listing of artwork of lighthouses, paintings of lighthouses or even lighthouse posters. There were websites and collections of articles about some of lighthouses in USA, but none were complete. They covered the more obvious or well known lighthouses, but not all were listed. That was until I came across the website, Lighthousefriends.com. Understand I was a novice when it came to lighthouses. I had seen many and taken photos of lighthouse just like anyone else. There were places that sold posters of lighthouses and paintings of lighthouses, but again it was only the popular lighthouses or the easily reached. I was impressed that the lighthouses in the United States were built for the most part by individual states, rather than the US Government, thus accounting for their varied and unique architecture.
I thought US lighthouses were magnificent structures and knew the purpose, but had no knowledge of the story of who built them or how they came to be. Not only did Lighthousefriends.com have an image of the lighthouse but also the story of how and when it came to be built, and sadly, if no longer existing, the story of it’s demise. The research was remarkable and I have only spoken to its creator once. The dedication and the time it must have taken to do the research was extremely impressive. The time and effort to find the pictures of lighthouses, old lighthouse photos and tintypes from the 1800′s, past and present must have been quite time consuming. Just locating the lighthouse pictures and researching a particular light and it’s story is mind boggling. It is difficult to comprehend how much the travel time and research expenses went into the Lighthousefriends.com site without a grant or government funding. It would be impressive if their information covered just a particular state. But the fact that all US lighthouses by state as well as Canada and Nova Scotia are listed is amazing. Their site helped me immensely in obtaining reference material for my paintings.
There are over 874 American lighthouses, many still remaining, many off the beaten path. I hope people take the time to visit these remarkable structures and learn their story. Do you have a story of your own about lighthouses? Maybe you visited one of these lighthouses as a child on a family vacation, or you grew up near one, or wish you had. Maybe you have information that will help us make this site better. Or make our artwork better. Please, let us hear from you. Correspond via email at [email protected]. We appreciate your help in making this the best resource for fine art prints of America’s lighthouses.
We are artists and fans of lighthouses. But we are by no means experts. We have done our very best with research, our limited knowledge, and love of fine art to be faithful in reproducing these images. We invite you to let us know what lighthouses we have missed, if we have misspelled a name, if we have an incorrect location or date, or any other information about lighthouses.
All lighthouses are available as a downloadable PDF file of a 30 x 24 in. poster, ready to print in color or black and white. You can also resize the image yourself, save in different formats, or ask your printing company to make postcards, greeting cards or posters of different sizes and on different types of paper. You will have two opportunities to download the image file after purchase. All lighthouse image files are horizontal format allowing a set for the office, home, hotel or restaurant with the same proportions, size, and quality; and allow a lighthouse collection that is consistent for decorating purposes. One more note about the lighthouse artwork on the website, all our images of the lighthouse prints have been watermarked with the americaslighthouses.com logo to protect our copyright. The images you purchase will not have that watermark.