[ Music plays ] Narrator: Island Heights on the Toms River near the Jersey shore is on the National Register of Historic Sites.

This is due in no small part to the presence of the John F. Peto Studio Museum.

Peto was an important 19th century artist, although he was long overlooked.

Bower: My name is Harry Bower.

I'm the curator of art and artifacts for the John F. Peto Studio Museum in Island Heights, New Jersey.

What I like about the Peto paintings also, all the pipe paintings that I've seen where there's a pipe, there's hot embers.

Peto was known for what's called trompe l'oeil, and trompe l'oeil means to fool your eye.

Kusserow: And to fool the eye in still life painting was to make images that were so realistic that you could mistake them for the real thing.

Bower: We now have 27 paintings in our collection, probably the largest collection of Peto paintings.

Narrator: Harry Bower is also an artist.

A retired art teacher, he weaves upcycled materials into kimonos, baskets, and other objects of beauty.

Bower: Peto uses everyday objects.

I think that might be the connection with Peto.

Narrator: Harry lives just a short walk away, and he's been dedicated to the Peto Studio Museum almost since its very beginnings in 2005.

Bower: We are part of the Historic Artists Homes and Studios, which is a national organization.

We're the only one in New Jersey.

Some of the other artists' homes and studios would be Georgia O'Keeffe's Home and Studio, Wyeth's home and studio.

Narrator: After Peto's death in 1907, his family continued to live in the house for almost a century, often renting rooms to seaside visitors.

But by 2005, the house had been empty for years.

Bower: I remember somebody telling me that this was the scary house when they were kids because of, you know, it got -- it fell into bad shape and repair.

Narrator: In 2005, philanthropists saved it from the wrecking ball.

Peto's heirs had kept almost all his furnishings and still life objects, which now form the core of the John F. Peto Studio Museum's collection.

Bower: They went through 60 samples of scrapings of paints to find the original colors, the historical colors of the house, and through photographs they were able to put the house back to when Peto actually did live here.

[ Music plays ] Peto is actually originally from Philadelphia.

Narrator: In fact, his father was the city's first fire chief.

Peto painted this portrait, now in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

It's also where Peto studied for a year.

Bower: But he came to Island Heights to play the cornet for the Methodist camp meeting grounds.

He got paid to play the cornet for the camp meeting grounds.

[ Music plays ] He gave private art lessons, also sold to tourists.

The Methodists would probably walk past his house to go to the camp meeting grounds, and he would sell his artwork to them.

[ Music plays ] Kusserow: Peto's work was very much in the shadows for the early part of the 20th century.

It wasn't until about 1950 that an art critic and historian from San Francisco named Alfred Frankenstein discovered his work and realized that he was in obscurity, in part because many of his greatest works were actually thought to be the work of another artist.

Narrator: Many of Peto's paintings were passed off as the work of William Harnett, a much more famous artist whose work sold for much higher prices.

Bower: William Harnett and Peto were actually friends, and Harnett also was a trompe l'oeil artist.

Harnett was being much more successful than Peto.

Peto stayed here in Island Heights, dedicated to his family, to his daughter, to his aunts.

Someone was putting Harnett's signature on top of Peto's paintings, because they could buy the paintings here in Island Heights or in Philadelphia.

And by the time they got to New York, they had Harnett's name on them.

Princeton Museum has one.

Kusserow: You could literally see the faded Peto signature underneath the superimposed Harnett signature.

Also, people, as they got to know the work of the two artists better, could see that there were, in fact, stylistic differences between the two.

Harnett painted new, shiny things in a very slick way, and Peto painted older things that were worn and had a sense of personality and life lived about them.

And then finally it was discovered that some of the props in Peto paintings were actually later found to be in his home and, thus, highly unlikely that they were the work of Harnett.

Bower: If we have the painting, I try to put the objects with the painting so people can see how he might have put together his compositions.

We have the ladle that's in this composition.

Visitor: Wow.

Bower: And I think, again, it's that table that's down in the studio, the tray that -- He really was dealing with everyday, common man objects.

He did quite a few paintings of a good book, a good pipe, and a good mug of beer.

Narrator: In 1983, a solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., catapulted Peto to his rightful position in American art.

"An American master comes into his own," declared the New York Times, and artists took note.

Bower: Jasper Johns gives Peto credit for inspiring him to do his paintings of everyday objects.

Wayne Thiebaud was inspired by Peto, again, everyday objects.

Thiebaud's collection of, like, cake paintings, another example of how he was -- he even mentions it in his book that he was influenced by Peto.

Narrator: Today, Peto's work can be found in major museums throughout the world.

Kusserow: Peto's work is lovely, wonderful to look at, beautifully composed.

His palette is rich and highly colorful.

He was a very good painter and sort of an artist's artist in that if you look at the way the paint is laid down on the canvas, it's done so in a really compelling, almost idiosyncratic way.

Bower: I just feel honored to be able to be part of Peto's legacy.

But I know he feels good about what's going on here.

[ Speaking indistinctly ]