Perched on the edge of Lake Superior’s sapphire waters, Bayfield, Wisconsin exists as a real-life watercolor painting where every street corner could double as the front of a greeting card.

Elon Green’s telling of the life and death of the artist Michael Stewart is filled with heartbreaking echoes of the present.

History is coming alive one page at a time in a large sunlit studio in Porter Hall – once home to shelves and shelves of ...