From left: Lois Woolley: “Study for a Portrait;” Malgorzata Oakes: “Unceasing Birkenstocks” and “Unceasing;” Melanie Delgado: “Coyote Calm.”

Included in the show are Karen O’Neil’s still life August Late Afternoon Light; the bravura of Kate McGloughlin in A Heart at Sea II; Patty Mooney’s elegant wood sculpture Staff. There are some fine landscapes by, among others, Bruce Bundock, ES DeSanna, Christie Scheele, Hongnian Zhang, and John A. Varriano. The figure is represented by Lois Woolley and Claire Lambe – Woolley’s in a suite of oil sketches of three young people, each work deftly capturing a different aspect of the human condition of youth. Also there are some excellent abstracts including from Jenne M. Currie, Donald Elder, Jenny Nelson, and Meredith Rosiér. Last but not least, work from the print studio includes an extraordinary lithograph inked in green by Ron Netsky, a striking Karen Whitman linoleum cut, experimental silkscreen by Malgorzata Oakes, and more. All of this curator, Alan Goolman, must – as I write — knit together into a coherent exhibition.

John A. Varriano, “Evening Light,” oil on canvas. 18” x 30”

WSA is part of the fabric of Woodstock – dating back to 1906, it has its roots in the Art Students League of New York (ASL). Attracted by the fresh current of artistic innovation at the newly founded Byrdcliffe Artists’ Colony for which Woodstock was gaining a reputation, the ASL established a summer school that year in the building on Tinker Street that now serves as the Christian Science Reading Room – ASL held classes there through 1922. The lovely stone buildings at 2470 Route 212 with which many of us are familiar today were begun in 1939. They were commissioned as a school for arts and crafts under the National Youth Administration (NYA), one of the programs in FDR’s New Deal. The NYA program ended after World War II, and the ASL returned to Woodstock in 1947 and leased the campus to once again host their summer school.

Karen Whitman, “Rooftop Rhythms.” Linoleum Cut. 18.5” x 23.5”

In 1968, four artists affiliated with the League—Franklin Alexander, Robert Angeloch, Lon Clark, and Wallace (Jerry) Jerominek—established the Woodstock School of Art (WSA) and, in 1980, incorporated as a not-for-profit.

Bruce Bundock, “Octaparagon Nature Preserve.” 12” x 12”

Today, the WSA holds classes throughout the year in newly renovated and climate-controlled studios, including a new state-of-the-art print studio overseen by the always intrepid Kate McLoughlin. The print studio is particularly deserving of a mention as among those early teachers at the school was Bolton Brown, a master lithographer; Brown was also the person responsible for the Byrdcliffe Artists’ Colony being located in the Catskills instead of the Carolinas, the first choice of founders Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and Jane Byrd McCall and, consequently, the WSA being established in Woodstock too. In 1900 Brown, a keen hiker and mountaineer, spied Woodstock from Overlook Mountain and persuaded Whitehead and Byrd McCall that this valley was the perfect location for the Arts & Crafts colony they planned to create. How Bolton Brown would have enjoyed making lithographs in the beautiful airy print studio that is, arguably, his legacy!

Patty Mooney, “Staff.” Mahogany and plaster, 90” x 4” x 5”
Christie Scheele, “Sundrenched.” Oil on canvas, 40” x 40”

The exhibition will be open from November 20, 2021 through December 30, 2021 and will be available for viewing both online on the gallery website, and in person. For in-person visits, the Lockwood Gallery is open Thurs-Sun 11am-6pm. It is located at 747 NY-28, Kingston, NY 12401.

The exhibiting artists are Bruce Bundock, Peter Clapper, Jenne M. Currie, Melanie Delgado, ES Desanna, Staats Fastold, Joan Ffolliott, Mary Anna Goetz, Tor Gudmundsen, Wendy Hollender, Claire Lambe, Polly M. Law, Lisa Mackie, Kate McGloughlin, Wayne Montecalvo, Patty Mooney, Jenny Nelson, Ron Netsky, Malgorzata Oakes, Karen O’Neil, Jeanne Bouza Rose, Meredith Rosiér, Christie Scheele, Murial Stallworth, John A. Varriano, Karen Whitman, Marlene Wiedenbaum, Lois Woolley, Hongnian Zhang.

Featured Image: Karen O’Neil. “August Late Afternoon Light.” Oil on canvas, 16” x 16”

A husband-and-wife dual retrospective
Featuring fairy-tale fantasy and woodwork
Wired Gallery, 11 Mohonk Road, High Falls, NY.

Married for decades, Andrew Willner and Jo-Ellen Trilling share a bond of creativity. They’ve traveled on different artistic tracks, but side by side; embarked in New York City and arrived in The Hudson Valley, near Rosendale.

Wired Gallery presents Side by Side, a dual retrospective featuring works by Jo-Ellen Trilling and Andrew Willner, opening on Saturday, August 3, with a reception from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

Jo-Ellen Trilling in her studio in Rosendale

Trilling’s paintings and dolls exemplify Magic Realism. Appearances lure and trick with bright colors but incongruous details. Whimsical, Bosch-like hybrid creatures teeter on disturbing. Winged things cling to Grimm forest trees; a live rooster hat glares from a dog doll’s head. Disquieting toys have too-round faces, and ‘steampunk’ horses advance. Strange animals peer through Alice’s looking glass.

Andrew Willner in his studio in Rosendale

Nautical notes and textures pervade Willner’s woodwork: An elegant, slender ‘steamer trunk’ box; seawall posts settling unevenly in sand over time. He works utilitarian pieces into waves and swells, counter-current swirls, gentle lifts and ebbs on surfaces far from shore. Willner coopers and carves fine wood, sands to fluid flows, oils it to a rich sheen.

Jo-Ellen’s works have been avidly sought by private collectors, especially by prominent individuals in the entertainment world, such as Elton John, Carrie Fisher, Billy Crystal, David Letterman, Robin Williams, and Madonna, just to name a few.

Jo-Ellen Trilling, Second Chance in Cat Heaven (detail), Oil on canvas, 30x40in.

Jo-Ellen was born in Huntington, Long Island, in 1947 and grew up in Setauket, Long Island. She attended the State University of New York, New Paltz, during which time she focused on dollmaking. Also, at that time, Trilling began creating portrait figures in cloth, producing prototypes for her later works. She moved to New York City in 1972 where she studied pastel drawing at New York’s Art Students League with Dan Green.

Fashioned from cloth, wire, and other materials, her sculptures portray such subjects as lascivious pigs in flamenco costume and leering dogs in gangster suits or leather motorcycle outfits. Trilling’s sculptures have been exhibited at various venues. They may be found in the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, Kansas, and the Ito Doll Museum, Japan. Trilling began painting in 2001, and her first exhibition devoted to her oils in New York City took place in 2008.

The Philadelphia Museum will include 2 Jackets from the 1980’s, in an exhibit entitled Off The Wall, opening this November.  For more about JoEllen, visit her website.

Willner has been a sculptor, furniture designer, boat builder, city planner, environmentalist, permaculturist, transition advocate, storyteller, public speaker, and blogger. He is writing a book, Fish and Ships, a photo narrative of the people, places, and environment of one of the most beautiful and vulnerable estuaries in the world. Most of his photographs were taken while patrolling the New York/ New Jersey Harbor for 20 years on the Baykeeper skiff.

Andrew Willner, Horizontal Wave Stabile, Glue laminated poplar, 21x30x6in.

1969–70 Graduate study at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA with instructor Alan Lazarus.1970–1974 Wood Working Resident at Peters Valley Craft Center, Layton, NJ. 1969 – 1989 Andrew Willner Designs, Furniture, Sculpture, and architectural woodworking. The objects created during that time were exhibited widely and are in museum and private collections in the United States and Europe. 2013-present, teaching wood working and boat building at the Hudson River Maritime Museum, lecturing and demonstrating woodworking techniques, helping to create maker spaces, and creating new works in wood in a new home studio. For much more about Andrew, go HERE

Wired Gallery, 11 Mohonk Road, High Falls, NY–
Hours: Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
TheWiredGallery.com
Facebook.com/wiredgallery

Jim Holl, “Particle Point Collision 3.27.20.” Oil on board, 17” x 17”

The artist, Jim Holl, also an Associate Professor of Art at Marymount Manhattan College, has exhibited widely in venues as diverse as MOMA PS1 and Cross Contemporary in Saugerties; he is a published author of two books, The Landscape Painter, an autobiography 1974 through 1994, and All the Living Things, published in 2017. The title of the autobiography might appear at odds with the work on show at the Lockwood and that which is reproduced here, but it is, in fact, not. In the exhibition catalog, Holl tells of an episode from his earlier life as a landscape painter working on the shores of Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest. He documents his efforts to paint Blake Island across the sound from his studio there. His aim then was to paint what he saw and he evokes the ancient Greek idea of “Mimesis” wherein the artist’s job was “to replicate nature’s presence of beauty and truth.” But the capricious nature of that area’s weather, light, and atmosphere which refused to stay constant long enough for him to complete a painting, forced him to paint from memory and “to make it up.”

Jim Holl, “Particle Point Collision 5.1.20.” Oil on Shikishi Kochi handmade paper. 9.5 x 10.5”

The contemplation of this ephemeral weather that caused the world in front of his eyes to alter so radically from moment to moment led Holl on a journey from the macro to the micro, and to science, including “an inquiry into physics and ancient philosophies” – this quote from his new book All the Living Things. He became interested in how atoms interact with each other. From there he delved into the subatomic, the universe inside the atom, to the nucleus, its quarks, protons, neutrons, and the electrons that surround the nucleus, each particle tinier than the other – for scale, a mote in the sunlight that you can barely see is millions of atoms wide. This, in turn, led him to the investigations being conducted with the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, and that observatory’s discovery of new particles and entities such as the Higgs Boson through speed-of-light accelerated collisions. Holl writes about how the collisions produce electromagnetic particle showers that create light: “The particles cannot be seen but the traces of their trajectories can be measured. These traces are the subject of my paintings.” So, Holl is still working from nature and the natural world or, at least, imagining it; he is still searching for that beauty and truth. I can’t speak for the truth in his paintings bereft as I am of a science education having been schooled by nuns for an Mrs., but I can speak for their beauty. Holl is a master colorist – there are no false notes in these paintings. The works have a lyricism to them that one can easily imagine are traces of light flying across their surfaces; they have a feeling of truth.

Installation shot: “From Energy, Matter Emerges 9.2.2020,” 84”w x 36”d x 57”h, and “The New Periodic Table 9.5.2020,” digital print on archival paper, 71.25” x 24.”

The eight sculptures, a single installation in fact, are small — about 6” high but on plinths that are part of the whole so each one is 14” x 14” x 57” high. They are imaginings of particle points, quarks, electrons and neutrons, the fundamental building blocks of nature, and are based on the “New Periodic Table” of the physicist David Tong. Collectively, the piece is entitled From Energy, Matter Emerges 9.2.2020, but each part has its own subtitle that corresponds to an entry on Tong’s New Periodic Table. The table itself is digitally printed in colored squares on paper behind the installation. The sculptures evoke Tong’s description of how all of the particle points are “fluid-like substances which are spread throughout the entire universe and ripple in strange and interesting ways.” These particle points are tiny, a millionth of billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter according to Holl’s essay. Therefore the sculptures, relative to the scale of the particles they represent, are gigantic – Holl says, “They are the most enormous art works an artist has ever created in the history of humankind!”

After the current exhibition, the gallery is hosting The Woodstock School of Art Instructors’ Exhibition with the artists’ reception on Thursday, November 12th, 5pm – 7pm. This show promises the diversity of style, technique, and subject matter that make up the instructor pool at the school. It runs through December 5; gallery hours for this show are Thursdays through Mondays 11am – 6pm.

The Lockwood Gallery, if you aren’t yet familiar with it, is a fairly new addition to the region; it opened just a year ago and is situated in a business complex on NY 28 near the Hickory BBQ & Smoke House restaurant. It shares space with its parent, Lockwood Architecture PLLC – full address and contact info below. 

A note on the Lockwood Gallery protocols for Covid-19: After a 2 month closure and virtual shows, the gallery has re-opened with outdoor receptions with reduced capacity and a door person to help limit the amount of visitors to six at any one time. Masks and Distancing are, of course, required at all times.

Featured image: Jim Holl, Particle Point Collision 6.10.20, Oil on Shikishi Kochi handmade paper. 9.5 x 10.5”

All images are courtesy of the artist.

Visits to the Jim Holl exhibition are by appointment; the booking calendar can be accessed via the website  THELOCKWOODGALLERY.COM. A direct link to the booking calendar can also be found in the gallery’s Instagram bio.

Lockwood Gallery, 747 Route 28, Kingston, NY 12401
Tel: 845–532-4936

Claire Lambe

Claire Lambe is an Irish born painter whose works have been exhibited on both sides of the Atlantic. Locally, she has been included in shows at the Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz; The Muroff-Kotler Gallery, SUNY Ulster; and Cross Contemporary Art, Saugerties. She is also an instructor at the Woodstock School of Art. Claire is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and holds an MFA in painting from the City University of New York. Writing credits include contributing author to Teen Life in Europe (part of the Teen Life Around The World series), and articles and reviews for this publication. Claire Lambe’s artwork can be seen  HERE 

The 2020 Kingston Annual will be available to view starting Saturday, September 5, both at our galleries at 97 Broadway in Kingston and online at kingstonannual.art.

You must sign for a timed slot to visit the gallery on opening weekend. Please use our sign-up page. After the opening weekend, ASK’s Galleries are open Tue-Sat 1-6pm and Sunday 1-5pm.

Stagecraft Sundays

Join Little Ghost Theatre for their free monthly virtual theatre workshop, Sunday, September 6, from 1-3pm.

This free workshop features fun games and exercises to keep your theatre chops toned. There are two ways to participate. You may participate as a guest practitioner, in which you, the guest, can drop by and play for the first hour and a half, or you can participate as an ensemble member, wherein we ask for a commitment to all the for see-able sessions for the year as we work towards a larger, common goal in the second hour of Stagecraft Sundays.

The ensemble is currently devising a new play about regret.
Please note that this is the last session where you can join the ensemble.

Curated by Hanna Maria Sawka and Dr. Frank Boyer
February 8 – July 12, 2020

James Beck, art critic, historian, and one-time head of the Columbia University Art Department, described Jan Sawka as a contemporary Renaissance artist. Jan Sawka, whose work is currently on show at the Dorsky’s Morgan Anderson Gallery and Howard Greenberg Family Gallery, at Suny New Paltz through July 12, is indeed as described by Beck: throughout his long career as an artist, he has made posters, illustrations, drawings, paintings, sculptures, every form of printmaking, installations, outdoor sculptures, and electronically guided images. His work has appeared in rock music festivals including astonishing sets for the Grateful Dead 1989–91 anniversary tour, in concert halls, and theaters all over Europe, and from the USA to Japan and Taiwan. He has created artworks for anti-nuclear fundraisers, Holocaust memorials, Human Rights Watch, and the Solidarity Movement. He described himself as a “multimedia man.”

The exhibition at the Dorsky, which includes a series of paintings and dry-point etchings, is titled “Jan Sawka: The Place of Memory (The Memory of Place).” The work in this show explores the clear and the obscure inherent in memory and draws on the landscape of his adopted home in the mid-Hudson Valley. Yet the images are primarily created from his interior world, mental images rather than studies from the landscape or photographs, although the faces and figures that he includes appear photographic. The exhibition showcases four monumental triptychs, Ashokan 1–4, actually conceived as one piece, depicting a vista of the Ashokan Reservoir framed by the Catskill Mountains, a landscape beloved by Sawka because it reminded him of a childhood holiday place in Poland, his homeland, from where he was exiled in 1976. Like so many immigrants before him, especially reluctant ones, when Sawka found a place in the mid-Hudson Valley that reminded him of home, he settled there – in the town of High Falls – and remained there until his death in 2012 at age 65.

Ashokan 1–4 is a land and waterscape rendered in the darkest of jewel tones. These works are as much drawing and writing as they are painting – he uses a mixed media of acrylic paint and ink – each work is covered in rows of roughly centimeter-long marks drawn or painted in alternate diagonals and within these are shapes that are reminiscent of hieroglyphics; many are abstract and others include figurative elements. It requires close inspection to see how highly detailed and painstakingly made these works are and according to the artist: “No easy tricks – everything done by hand.” The supports (Masonite) are completed at the top edge with an irregular border depicting the mountain skyline of the Catskills and, in the center, the rising and setting sun. Additionally, the works contain small architectural structures built into the canvas (Sawka was first a student of architecture). In a statement on his art, he wrote: “I see design, architecture, and art as one potent mixture of ideas, rules, and challenges…”

Jan Sawka, Post Card #19, (from the series “Post Cards”), 1987–89, printed 1990, drypoint etching on paper, collection Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, gift of the Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs

At the back of the gallery, the etchings from his folio Post-cards — luminous works on Arches paper — are not to be missed. Made using the dry-point etching technique on plexiglass, a material that doesn’t allow for mistakes and corrections, they feature places of importance to the artist. They are then painted by hand in watercolor or, in some cases it seems, the paint was perhaps applied prior to the printing. This method has been part of Sawka’s practice since his youth; while still in his twenties, he was the youngest recipient of France’s “Oscar de la Peinture” and the award of the President of the Republic of France – the President’s Award was for “Innovation in the Art of Painting” for his combination of engraving/intaglio print-making techniques together with traditional painting.

Although some of the works in the exhibition appear abstract, they are really not. They are rooted in imaginative representational imagery, including even the text aspects which tend to be invented. Others are unambiguously representational, such as Memory, 1887; this is among works whose treatment and colors are strongly reminiscent of Pop Art but retain a sense of mystery – the mystery that resides in snippets of dreams and memories half forgotten.

Jan Sawka, The Memory (or The Mirror), 1987, courtesy the Estate of Jan Sawka

Born in 1946 into post-war Europe, Sawka came from a highly cultured family at odds with the authoritarian socialism of Joseph Stalin; his father, an architect, was imprisoned by Stalin when Sawka was a boy. As a young man, Sawka was encouraged to choose architecture over other forms of art – the more sensible choice — but after university, he became a creator of under-ground posters. This and other oppositional activities eventually led to him being exiled from Poland. In 1976 and he and his wife, Hanka, and their new-born child were able to emigrate to France thanks to an invitation from the Georges Pompidou Center; Jan Sawka was one of the first artists-in-residence at the Pompidou Center shortly after its opening.  The following year, they emigrated to the USA eventually settling in High Falls. Initially, in the US, Sawka made a living by creating commentary illustrations for the Op-Ed page of the New York Times.  He soon began showing his work in galleries in New York, Los Angeles and other cities in the United States, and the bulk of his art career has been in this country. The exhibition at the Dorsky, is co-curated by Hanna Sawka, the artist’s daughter, and Dr. Frank Boyer.

Featured image: Jan Sawka, “Asbury Notebook,” 1981, courtesy Jan and Michael Solow

This Exhibition runs through July 12, 2020

Museum Hours: Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Closed Mondays, Tuesdays, holidays and intersessions. For more about The Dorsky Museum and its programs, visit http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum or call (845) 257‑3844.

About The Dorsky Museum
Through its collections, exhibitions and public programs, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art supports and enriches the academic programs at the College and serves as a center for Hudson Valley arts and culture. With more than 9,000 square feet of exhibition space distributed over six galleries, The Dorsky Museum is one of the largest museums in the SUNY system. Since its official dedication in 2001, The Dorsky has presented more than 100 exhibitions, including commissions, collection-based projects, and in-depth studies of contemporary artists including Robert Morris, Alice Neel, Judy Pfaff, Carolee Schneemann and Ushio Shinohara.

Claire Lambe is an Irish born painter whose works have been exhibited on both sides of the Atlantic; she is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and holds an MFA in painting from the City University of New York. Writing credits include contributing author to Teen Life in Europe (part of the Teen Life Around The World series), and articles and reviews for this publication. Claire Lambe’s art work can be seen here: 

Leonard Contino, 1940 – 2016, was an extraordinary man who, despite being a quadriplegic, produced an enormous volume of art during his 50-year career as an artist. Some of this can be found at the Dorsky’s Alice and Horace Chandler Gallery and North Gallery – the exhibition runs through April 5, 2020. Brooklyn born, Contino turned his childhood interest in drawing into a  living “pin-stripping” cars and hot rods until, at age 19, a car accident resulted in a broken spine and paralyses from the shoulders down. While in rehabilitation, he became close to another young patient who was also recovering from a similarly terrible accident, the sculptor Mark di Suvero. They became life-long friends and, later, exhibited together. In the rehab Di Suvero encouraged Contino to return to drawing and eventually to paint; unlike most quadriplegics, Contino was fortunate to have retained some mobility in his arms and hands although required a brace for their function. Contino was also fortunate to have a mother dedicated in her belief in her son and who became his abettor in art-making; according to di Suvero, “she was a partner in his mission.”

Leonard Contino, Moon Year Majec, 1972, courtesy the Estate of Leonard Contino

Contino’s work at the Dorsky consists of abstract and semi-abstract paintings, and collages. The abstract works are geometric “hard-edge” pieces in which Contino uses three particular motifs: triangles,  squares and rectangles, and biomorphic shapes – often the shapes are fitted together in a pattern or tessellated. In some pieces, the shapes extend beyond the canvas. Contino worked in acrylic, applying the paint in thin layers to create a luminous effect as seen in Moon Year Majec from 1972 – although this particular piece has an op-art Vasarely-esque look, Contino has said his aim was to create paintings that are “like a field of energy.”

Another strand of Contino’s work was collage – these he made in the evenings after working all day on the paintings. They are reminiscent of both Hieronymus Bosch and the Monty Python’s Flying Circus graphics of the original TV series which first aired on the BBC in 1969. The collages combine images from advertisements, pop-culture, National Geographic magazines and pornography; they feature animal-machine hybrids, disembodied limbs, cars, birds, etc. They are curiously different from the day-time work of the paintings which he believed were spiritual in their inspiration. Don’t miss the very informative video presentation. This exhibition runs through April 5, 2020.

Leonard Contino, Untitled, n.d. Photograph by Claire Lambe

The museum’s Sara Bedrick Gallery is host to “Collecting Local: Twelve Years of the Hudson Valley Artists Annual Purchase Award.” Every year for the last twelve years, the Dorsky has sponsored and hosted the “Hudson Valley Artists” exhibitions – a series of open-call juried exhibitions for artists living and working in the Hudson Valley. Each year the museum purchases one or two pieces from the exhibition for its collection, and this exhibition showcases those purchases – this is the first time they have been exhibited together. For anyone who has been attending the annual exhibitions, it is a nice opportunity to revisit some of those works from over the years.

Richard Edelman, Rebekah Creshkoff in Search of Matilda, 2014, Archival Injet print on Rag Paper.

One of the works I was particularly pleased to see again is Richard Edelman’s remarkable photograph, Rebekah Creshkoff in Search of Matilda, from his Stolen Moments series – this from the 2015 exhibition (the Matilda of the title was, in fact, a cat). Richard, a long-time member of the Hudson Valley art community and proprietor of the Woodstock Graphic Studio, was among those lost to us in 2019. Olive Bridge’s Pat Kelley’s mesmerizing video, 175 Roman Churches, from the 2013 exhibition is worth spending time contemplating – in it, rendered in sepia tones, the churches slowly morph one into the other with occasional brilliance occurring from the appearance of stained-glass windows. Also worthy of note is Elisa Pritzker’s Zipped (tree) Trunk from the 2012 exhibition – a very incongruous and evocative piece. This exhibition continues through July 12, 2020. 

A thought-provoking exhibition on the subject of “War” is in the Seminar Room Gallery until July 12 and, as always, there is the joy of works on exhibit from the museum’s extensive permanent collection in the Corridor Gallery. This is an ever-changing but ongoing exhibition.

Featured image: Leonard Contino, LADY, 1967, courtesy the Estate of Leonard Contino

Museum Hours: Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Closed Mondays, Tuesdays, holidays and intersessions. For more information, visit www.newpaltz.edu/museum or call (845) 257‑3844

About The Dorsky Museum

Through its collections, exhibitions and public programs, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art supports and enriches the academic programs at the College and serves as a center for Hudson Valley arts and culture. With more than 9,000 square feet of exhibition space distributed over six galleries, The Dorsky Museum is one of the largest museums in the SUNY system. Since its official dedication in 2001, The Dorsky has presented more than 100 exhibitions, including commissions, collection-based projects, and in-depth studies of contemporary artists including Robert Morris, Alice Neel, Judy Pfaff, Carolee Schneemann and Ushio Shinohara.

Claire Lambe is an Irish born painter whose works have been exhibited on both sides of the Atlantic; she is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and holds an MFA in painting from the City University of New York. Writing credits include contributing author to Teen Life in Europe (part of the Teen Life Around The World series), and articles and reviews for this publication. Claire Lambe’s art work can be seen here: 

“Tonalism” is curated by Karen Quinn, senior historian and curator, art and culture, at the New York State Museum. The exhibition will be on view from Aug. 28 – Dec. 8, 2019, in The Dorsky’s Morgan Anderson and Howard Greenberg Family Galleries. A public opening reception will be held on Saturday, Sept. 7, from 5–7 p.m.

Emerging in the years after the Civil War, Tonalism appealed to audiences seeking respite from the devastation of war, the political turmoil of Reconstruction, the rise of industrialization and urbanization, and related cultural issues.

In the broadest sense, Tonalism can be understood as an approach to representation that relied less on faithfulness to visual reality than on creating an evocative mood, often through memory. Tonalist artists achieved a prevailing sense of quiet by depicting subjects at either end of the day, in soft light and with a delicate range of colors – thus, “tonal.” Landscapes dominated, but figurative works were not excluded. Overall, Tonalism encouraged contemplation.

Tonalism has long been considered a conservative late 19th-century approach to painting, often discussed as the antithesis to Impressionism, but recent scholarship has begun to reassess Tonalism as innovative in its approach to representation both in concept and as realized.

This exhibition repositions Tonalism in this new context: as both an outgrowth of the Hudson River School (among other influences), and as an important foundation helping to lay the groundwork for Modernism.

George Inness, “Keene Valley, Adirondacks,” 1885, oil on board, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, gift of Elizabeth Koppitz

“Tonalism: Pathway from the Hudson River School to Modern Art” is organized by the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art and the New York State Museum. Following their institutional missions, the exhibition builds on the work of well-known trailblazers such as James McNeil Whistler and George Inness, while also shedding light on the contributions of lesser-known masters with ties to New York.

Featured artists include Frederick Kost of Long Island, Birge Harrison of Woodstock, Alexander Wyant of Arkville and Keene Valley, and Walter Launt Palmer of Albany. Many of the included works are presented on load from private collectors, offering viewers a rare chance to see paintings and photographs that are not in the public domain.

Following its presentation at The Dorsky, the exhibition will travel to the New York State Museum in Albany, New York, where it will be on display from Feb. 15 – June 14, 2020.

About the Curator

Karen E. Quinn is senior historian and curator of art and culture at the New York State Museum. Currently she is researching and building the museum’s collection of art related to New York State, including decorative arts, paintings, works on paper, architecture, photography, popular culture, literature and music, and interpreting them for museum visitors. She is also working with colleagues to develop interdisciplinary exhibitions, public programs and publications that put works of art into their historical and cultural context. Quinn’s current and past exhibitions include Art of the Erie Canal (2018), The Historic Woodstock Art Colony: The Arthur A. Anderson Collection (2018–19), and Tonalism: Pathway from the Hudson River School to Modernism (2019–20).

Previously, Quinn was Kristin and Roger Servison Curator of Paintings, Art of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she contributed to exhibitions and catalogues on the work of Fitz Henry Lane, Lawren Harris, Edward Weston and Martin Johnson Heade, among others, and also worked on thematic shows devoted to American landscape, Afro Brazilian art and American modernism. She was part of the team that developed and executed the museum’s Art of the Americas wing (2010). She also served as project manager and wrote for Paintings of the Americas (2012), the museum’s first online scholarly collection catalogue.

Featured Image: Birge Harrison, “Lawrence River Sunset,” n.d., oil on canvas, courtesy New York State Museum, Historic Woodstock Art Colony, Arthur A. Anderson Collection

About The Dorsky Museum

Through its collections, exhibitions and public programs, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art supports and enriches the academic programs at the College and serves as a center for Hudson Valley arts and culture. With more than 9,000 square feet of exhibition space distributed over six galleries, The Dorsky Museum is one of the largest museums in the SUNY system. Since its official dedication in 2001, The Dorsky has presented more than 100 exhibitions, including commissions, collection-based projects, and in-depth studies of contemporary artists including Robert Morris, Alice Neel, Judy Pfaff, Carolee Schneemann, and Ushio Shinohara.

Museum Hours: Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Closed Mondays, Tuesdays, Holidays and Intersessions.
For more information about The Dorsky Museum and its programs,
visit    http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum or call (845) 257‑3844.