s e p t e m B e r 2 0 1 8 5 1 the arts from left: dorothy rice liBrary of congress ; i y troutman; al ira peirce; ellen larsen Waldo’s Wives So Much More _ Than _ I II III IV by Colin sargent p , proto-hipster, a erican renoir. the ore we see hi through his wives, the clearer his li e and ti es beco e. abelaisian, bawdy, witty, robust, wild, lusty, protean, lecherous, luscious, the kind of man Ernest Hemingway wished he could be, Waldo Peirce (1884-1970) is Maine’s satyr prince of the art world. He devoured life. So whatever happened to his wives? It’s well known Waldo was pals with fellow Harvard classmate John Reed (played by War- ren Beatty in Reds); ran with the bulls at Pamplona with Hemingway; appeared as a charac- ter in The Sun Also Rises; and painted Hemingway across Europe and Key West, one canvas gracing the October 18, 1937, cover of Time magazine. But it’s not so well known that Waldo’s four wives were doorways for his perceptions. Most survey stories about the strapping six-foot, two-inch Bangor native barely get to his wives, or leave them out entirely. Let’s instead begin with them.