Loring Hayden was an artist who was born in New Hampshire and lived in Massachusetts and Florida. He attended Choate Academy and Yale University in Connecticut, and was an art student in Paris and part of the art community in Nantucket, an island just south of Cape Cod; he moved from Nantucket to Bradenton in 1982. He was also a photographer, playwright, and actor, and a language specialist in the Signal Service Corps during World War II. His papers are housed in Special Collections at the University of Minnesota. These two watercolors were done by him in the 1940's. One is nearly finished and the other is unfinished. The nearly finished one shows beachgoers at Jetties Beach in Nantucket, with a small penciled-in figure on the left; it is inscribed “For Alfred Lowden - connaisseur - bon vivant - whose advice I should have taken more often - With the affectionate wishes of his friend - Loring October fourteenth 1970" on the lower left and signed and dated "Jetties Beach Nantucket 1947, Sur Place, Loring Hayden”on the lower right. The other shows a large figure in sunglasses sitting on a beach chair, surrounded by three other figures that have been sketched in, but not colored in yet. It is inscribed "Ralph Stram at the Jetties - Nantucket - 1947" and signed "Loring S Hayden" in the lower right. The overall size of the first one is 14 5/8 x 18 1/8 in. wide and the sight size is 9 1/8 x 13 in. wide. The overall size of the second one is 15 1/8 x 18 1/4 in. wide and the sight size is 8 3/4 x 11 3/4 in. wide. We don't know why the first one has two dates (1947 and 1970).