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Charlie and Irene Hamm of Mystic are in their late 70s now, and they don’t go boating anymore. They’ve given their boats away. But in past years, they sailed a lot and saw many aspects of life at sea and on the coast.

An exhibit at New Britain Museum of American Art, “Over Life’s Waters: The Collection of Charles and Irene Hamm,” shows many aspects of life at sea and on the coast. The Hamms, who donated their collection to NBMAA in 2013, say the paintings reflect the multidimensional nature of the boating milieu.

“We chose paintings that added to our total experience and feeling about our cruising life,” said Charlie Hamm. “All of them in a way contribute to the atmosphere and experiential sense of cruising, things we saw and experienced.”

The Hamms donated 195 paintings to the museum. The exhibit features 93, a significant number given the gallery space. The high volume is due to some being hung museum-style and others in the more crowded salon-style, which the Hamms like because it reflects how the paintings were hung in their apartment in New York and their house in Mystic. “We’d see a square inch of white space and we’d use it,” Hamm said.

The Hamms organized the show with the help of exhibits manager John Urgo.

The “Mona Lisa” of the collection and his personal favorite, Hamm said, was “Swampscott Dory,” a 1891 oil-on-canvas by William Partridge Burpee. It shows an unmanned green boat, its mast and sail laying flat, on a sunny beach.

“If you had seen that dory on the beach you would see a dull, drab, brownish dory,” Hamm said. “Here’s an artist … who has taken the God-given baseness of the subject and given it a sense of life with light, color, proportion. He takes a mundane subject and creates something really magnificent.”

An entirely different view of seagoing is “Off the Greenland Coast Under the Midnight Sun,” an 1873 oil by William J. Bradford. The painting vividly captures the blazing sun on icebergs and frozen water. “That was [Bradford’s] boat. He made eight expeditions to the Labrador region and the Arctic,” Hamm said. “He loved the light.”

Views of Monhegan, Maine, New York Harbor, the Connecticut coast and Cape Ann, Mass. — as well as images of boats on the open sea — by American artists fill the gallery. They create a collage of seagoing from both 19th and 20th century, urban, rural and full-on open sea, elegant yachts and fishing boats, anglers and sailors, schooners and rowboats, tugboats and steamers, working wharves and recreational harbors, against seas stormy and calm and skies both ominous and delightful.

Museum director Douglas Hyland pointed out one of his favorites, “The Voyage Nearly Ended,” an 1877 oil by George Emerick Essig. The name of the painting seems to be about the end of the voyage of the boat in the foreground, but it has a double meaning.

“In the foreground is a sailing ship. In the background, you see a steamship. This sailing ship is going to be totally redundant very shortly,” Hyland said.

A curiosity in the show is an oil by Thomas Hart Benton “South Beach, Martha’s Vineyard,” which is installed away from the wall, with a mirror behind it, so visitors can see the still life on the back of the canvas.

Hamm said the title of the exhibit, “Over Life’s Waters,” reflects the contemplative vibe of life at sea, as well as contemplation of art. “You have so many opportunities for introspection, for cruising, just magnificent sights and viewings and experiences. it really is an important part of your aesthetic life,” he said. “You don’t have to do it every day but to experience and feel it is important.”

“OVER LIFE’S WATERS” is at the New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington St., until April 12. Information: nbmaa.org and 860-229-0257.