A show of paintings at the Louisa Gould Gallery in Vineyard Haven this week celebrates summer days at the Inkwell and other Island beaches, fields and farms.

Artist Kate Huntington’s plein-air-style oils on canvas capture lifeguards at work, children at play and families at leisure on the sand, alongside shimmering blue-green waters that recall Monet’s iridescent seascapes.

Other seasonal Island views include the Gay Head cliffs, wooden yachts moored in Vineyard Haven harbor, fishing boats in Edgartown and cows grazing in green fields, all painted from snapshots Ms. Huntington has taken here.

Remarkably, the Rhode Island artist was a newcomer to the Island just 20 years ago, when Ms. Gould contacted her on the recommendation of a fellow Vineyarder who had taken one of Ms. Huntington’s portrait-painting classes in Providence.

Ms. Huntington is also based in Providence, R.I. — Jeanna Shepard

“Louisa emailed me... and wow, just like that!” recalled Ms. Huntington, who became the first artist other than Ms. Gould herself to be represented at the gallery.

Ms. Gould, a photographer and painter who has just marked 23 years as an Island gallerist and now represents about 50 artists, said she was immediately struck by Ms. Huntington’s work.

“There are portrait painters and there are landscape painters. She is the rare artist who can do both at once,” Ms. Gould said.

Ranging in size from 8-by-10-inch portraits of individual children to expansive beach scenes up to 50 inches wide, Ms. Huntington’s paintings radiate the pure pleasure of Martha’s Vineyard summers.

They also reflect the particular joy of Black families at ease on Island shores, a subject Ms. Huntington first stumbled into and then embraced.

“I didn’t know anything about Oak Bluffs. I didn’t know the history behind [the Inkwell],” she told the Gazette at the show’s opening reception Saturday.

Her first Inkwell paintings were so well received that she has continued to foreground the community, said Ms. Huntington, who admitted to some concern that she might be seen as an opportunist.

Louisa Gould is celebrating her 23rd year as a galleries. — Jeanna Shepard

“I told Louisa, make sure they know that I’m not a Black person because I don’t want to exploit anybody,” she said.

Black viewers, however, have responded positively to the paintings, Ms. Huntington said.

“One woman was actually crying... because she couldn’t go to the beach [off-Island] when she was a kid. She was talking about being excluded,” she said.

“It made me realize how special the place was, because I didn’t know anything about it,” said Ms. Huntington, who attended the Rhode Island School of Design and taught studio painting for nearly 30 years.

She continues to teach portrait painting at the venerable Providence Art Club, founded in 1880.

Portraiture is “all about attitude,” Ms. Huntington said.

“I think I figured out how to capture the spirit of a person.”

She’s preserved the spirit of Vineyard summers as well in the Louisa Gould Gallery show, which runs through August 16 with more than of her 50 paintings on display.

Ms. Huntington’s artworks also are posted on the gallery website at louisagould.com/gallery.