On an exposed granite ledge overlooking Perkins Cove perches the Ogunquit Museum of American Art (OMAA). Southern Maine’s modernist gem of whitewashed cinderblock, stone lintels, repurposed wood ceiling beams, and glass is celebrating 70 years with a number of concurrent exhibitions. The exhibition The Architect of a Museum, which occupies a small gallery to the left of the entrance, is a great place to begin. Last year, during his first months as OMAA’s curator of modern and contemporary art, Devon Zimmerman committed to a “personal audit” of the museum’s collection in storage, uncovering in that process original blueprints by Charles Worley Jr., the building’s architect. Worley’s technical drawings are presented along with some of the museum’s earliest and notable acquisitions, including paintings by John Marin, Robert Laurent, and Marsden Hartley, as well as a selection of paintings by Henry Strater, the museum’s storied founder. Worley was a student of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and a friend-of-a-friend of Strater’s—fruitful connections that were fundamental to the emergence of the museum in the waning years of the Ogunquit artist colonies. In the adjacent gallery, Networks of Modernism explores the growth of the museum’s collection and the interconnectedness of its artists in the larger context of modernity. Works by Walt Kuhn, Stephen Hopkins Hensel, Marguerite Zorach, Romare Bearden, Reginald Marsh, and many others reflect the modernist experience, aesthetics, expressions of sexuality, critique of the changing era’s living and working conditions and urbanization, and the refuge from it, that many artists sought in the natural world and in places like Ogunquit. Zimmerman’s thrilling selections include works from the permanent collection that have never been exhibited.

Another way to begin a visit to the OMAA galleries is to give in to the pull that is, by design, in the direction of the gallery’s Atlantic-facing wall of glass—the pull to the water and the sky. In this central, high-ceilinged space between the museum’s entrance and that magnificent view of the sea, artist Meg Webster presents Site-Specific Work—five new, human-scale land artworks, including a moss bed contained by steel mesh and a drawing of a square in sumac on paper, both inspired by her walks on the museum’s grounds. There’s also a ring of beach sand impossibly brushed to defy its inherent fragility, and a conical tower of compressed soil that confounds the viewer with its resemblance to stone and concrete, the building materials of the museum. The exhibition is curated by Zimmerman and Theresa Choi, assistant curator.

In the gallery to the left is Ever Baldwin: Down the Line. The canvases, painted with raw pigment, marble dust, and wax, are so at one with their robust charred-wood frames (also made by Baldwin) that they read like sculpture—bodily human and more animal-like presences that feel both performative and watchful. To the right is Liam Lee’s Spontaneous Generation; the title refers to an alchemical belief that living organisms have the potential to come out of non living materials suddenly. The show astonishes with new, masterfully crafted needlefelt works in the form of highly adorned but functional furniture and wall tapestries. The hand-dyed wools are brilliantly colored, with nuanced gradations and hues that seem to emit their own light.

An anniversary is, in one sense, a renewal of vows. “At 70 years, we’re asking what it means to create a museum,” says Zimmerman. “We’re rethinking the space, and how we present the permanent collection and special exhibitions—we’re uncovering stories and making new connections.”

Concurrent exhibitions on view at Ogunquit Museum of American Art through November 12 are Networks of Modernism, 1898–1968; The Architect of a Museum; Spontaneous Generation: The Work of Liam Lee; Ever Baldwin: Down the Line; and Meg Webster: Site-Specific Work.