Exhibits

Hyde Preps Mohawk-Hudson Region Artists Exhibit

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The Hyde Collection is currently preparing for the October 3 opening of the 2010 Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region Juried Exhibition. Founded in 1936, the exhibition is one of the longest running annual juried exhibitions in the country and highlights the finest works of contemporary artists working along the Mohawk-Hudson corridor.

This is the first year that The Hyde Collection will host the exhibition, which rotates among three venues. The other two hosts are The Albany Institute of History and Art and the University Art Museum at the University at Albany. This year’s exhibition will be on display at The Hyde from October 3 through January 2, 2011 and a full-color catalogue produced for the exhibition will be available.

An Opening Reception and Awards Ceremony for artists and Hyde members is scheduled for Saturday evening, October 2, 2010 from 6 to 8 pm. Non-members are also welcome at an admission cost of $15 per person. The exhibition opens to the public on Sunday, October 3 from noon to 5 pm with non-member admission throughout the duration of the exhibition to be by donation suggested at $5.

Juror for the 2010 Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region exhibition is Charles Desmarais, Deputy Director for Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Desmarais leads a staff of eighteen curators and manages the collection, conservation, education, exhibition, and library departments at the museum. He previously served as director of the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati and was director of the Laguna Art Museum and the California Museum of Photography at the University of California.

Approximately 340 artists who work within a 100-mile radius of Albany and Glens Falls submitted images of their pieces. After first-round judging, eighty-six artists were selected to bring their works to the Museum for final selection. Art by seventy-two regional artists will be on display as part of The Hyde show. In connection with the exhibition, Desmarais is also curating a small Annex Show for the Tom Myott Gallery in the Shirt Factory Building in Glens Falls. This Annex Exhibition will run from October 2 through October 23 and an opening reception will be held following The Hyde’s award ceremony event from 7:30 – 9 pm on October 2.

New Exhibit Focuses on Picturing Women in American Art

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The Fenimore Art Museum has opened a new exhibition titled Picturing Women: American Art from the Permanent Collections. These images of women, assembled from the Museum’s extensive collection of American art, are distinct from the mainstream European portraiture of the upper class and aristocracy that we have become accustomed to. The rise of the United States’ middle class created a demand for all manner of paintings of the people who were settling the countryside and forming the social, commercial and religious communities that are still with us to this day.

Picturing Women: American Art from the Permanent Collections offers a selection of works that illustrates not only the appearances of these women, but also symbolizes the lives and contributions of these women to American culture. The exhibition is on view through December 31.

Other exhibitions currently on view at Fenimore Art Museum include John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women (through December 31, 2010), Empire Waists, Bustles and Lace: A Century of New York Fashion (through December 31, 2010), Watermark: Michele Harvey & Glimmerglass (through December 31, 2010), Virtual Folk: A Blog Readers’ Choice (through December 31, 2010). Ongoing Exhibitions include Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, The Coopers of Cooperstown, Genre Paintings from the Permanent Collection, and American Memory: Recalling the Past in Folk Art.

Museum hours: through October 11 (10 am – 5 pm), October 12 – December 31 (10 am &#8211 4 pm) Adult admission (13-64) is $12.00 and senior admission (65 and up) is $10.50. Children 12 and under are free as well as NYSHA members, active military, and retired career military. Visit their website for more information at www.fenimoreartmuseum.org.

Illustration: Mrs. George Hyde Clarke (Ann Low Cary, widow of Richard Fenimore Cooper), 1835, by Charles Cromwell Ingham (1796-1863). Oil on canvas.

Local Museums Offer Free Admission Saturday

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Saturday, September 25, 2010, museums around New York State will participate in the sixth annual Museum Day, presented by Smithsonian magazine.

A celebration of culture, learning, and the dissemination of knowledge, Smithsonian’s Museum Day reflects the spirit of the magazine, and emulates the free-admission policy of the Smithsonian Institution’s Washington, DC-based institutions. Doors will be open free of charge to Smithsonian readers and www.Smithsonian.com visitors at museums and cultural institutions nationwide.

Museum Day 2010 is poised to be the largest to date, outdoing last year’s record-breaking event. Over 300,000 museum-goers and 1,300 venues in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico participated in Museum Day 2009. Last year, two million visitors logged on to www.smithsonian.com/museumday to learn more about the program.

Attendees must present the Museum Day Admission Card to gain free entry to participating institutions. Visit www.Smithsonian.com/museumdayto download your Museum Day Admission Card. Each card provides museum access for two people, and one admission card is permitted per household. Listings and links to participating museums’ and sponsors’ web sites can also be found at the site. The complete list of participating museums in new York State is located here.

Arts Forum: Appraising Art, Re-Appraising Vanderlyn

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The artistic and historic treasures of the Hudson Valley receive special attention from renowned appraiser and television personality, Leigh Keno, at Senate House State Historic Site on Saturday, October 23, in an arts forum, Appraising Art, Re-appraising Vanderlyn, 10 am to 4:30 pm. Also, regional experts on Hudson Valley art and culture examine the artistic Vanderlyn family, including John Vanderlyn, painter of six U.S. Presidents and an important American artist born in Kingston, NY. Tickets are $10. An evening reception with Leigh Keno in the Vanderlyn Gallery of the Senate House Museum, with wine, food and music, is $50. per person. For more information and to reserve tickets, please call (845) 338-2786.

Television personality and keynote speaker Leigh Keno shares his antiques discoveries, including the auction of early Kingston native Anna Brodhead Oliver’s portrait for $1.1 million.The forum introduces the Vanderlyn Catalogue Raisonne Project to document John Vanderlyn (1775-1852), first American painter to receive a gold medal from Napoleon Bonaparte for his art. If you have Vanderlyn family art or letters to submit for evaluation, call (845)338-2786.

Presentations include talks on Pieter Vanderlyn and John Vanderlyn contemporaries. Paintings and antiques from audience members will be evaluated by Leigh Keno and art experts during the afternoon session. Post-forum, join Leigh Keno for a soiree with chamber music, period French wine and hors d’oeuvres in the Senate House Museum. Tickets for the evening event are $50 per person. Senate House State Historic Site houses the world’s largest collection of Vanderlyn paintings, documents and ephemera.

“’Appraising Art, Re-Appraising Vanderlyn’ will be a fun-filled day for the home antiquer and the art connoisseur with a few surprises thrown in” stated Katherine Woltz, Vanderlyn Project director, who expressed her thanks to the Saugerties Historical Society and Historic Huguenot Street for their assistance in organizing the forum with the Friends of Senate House and the staff of Senate House State Historic Site.

Senate House State Historic Site is located at 296 Fair Street, Kingston, NY 12401, and is part of a system of parks, recreation areas and historic sites operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and the site is one of 28 facilities administered by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission in New York and New Jersey. For further information about this and other upcoming events please call the site at (845) 338-2786 or visit the State Parks website at www.nysparks.com.

Illustration: Miniature portrait of John Vanderlyn (1775-1852). From the collection of the Senate House State Historic Site.

Currier & Ives Prints Exhibition at Senate House

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The exhibit Currier & Ives: &#8220Cheap and Popular Pictures&#8221 is now open at the Senate House State Historic Site in Kingston. The prints of Currier & Ives—one of the most successful purveyors of lithographic prints in the 19th Century—are diverse, full of fascinating historical information and compelling imagery, perhaps despite their perennial appearance on calendars and cards. This new exhibit at Senate House State Historic Site, offers us forty of their prints focusing on the ideals, values, and innovations of the 19th Century.

While it’s better known for its buildings and collections representing colonial and Revolutionary history, Senate House State Historic Site, located in uptown Kingston, also has impressive collections of objects, documents, and art of the 19th Century, including over 200 Currier & Ives prints, given to the site by the late Rutgers Ives Hurry, a Saugerties resident whose passion was collecting images of the Hudson Valley made by the firm.

The Senate House exhibition focuses on three themes: the ideal of the 19th-century home, images of New York City, and Hudson River steamboats (both the luxury and potential dangers they represented). The exhibit is entitled &#8220Cheap and Popular Pictures,&#8221 a term touted by Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives, who shrewdly observed and marketed their images&#8211made by many different artists of the day—to the opinions, interests, and ideals of America’s growing middle class.

The Senate House is open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm, and 1 – 5 pm on Sundays. The exhibit is free and open to the public. The exhibition runs through October 31 and is available by appointment and for school groups after that date. Senate House is located at 296 Fair Street, Kingston NY, 12401. For more information and other details, please call (845) 338-2786.

Illustration: Steamers Drew and St. John. Sketched and Drawn by C. R. Parsons.
Hand-colored lithograph published by Currier & Ives, New York. Courtesy of Senate House State Historic Site.

Albany Institute Offers Shoe Exhibits

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The Albany Institute of History & Art has announced two related upcoming exhibitions: “The Perfect Fit: Shoes Tell Stories” and “Old Soles: Three Centuries of Shoes from the Albany Institute’s Collection.” The exhibitions open on October 16, 2010, and close on January 2, 2011.

Since the invention of protective foot coverings by early societies thousands of years ago, shoes have become not only an essential element of our clothing, but also symbols of status, utility, amusement, and art. “The Perfect Fit” features more than 100 examples of fanciful footwear created by contemporary American artists between 2004 and 2008. The shoes are made of materials ranging from clay, metal, fabric, wood, glass, and paper, and transcend everyday style and function to illustrate various themes pertaining to issues of gender, history, sexuality, class, race, and culture.

The exhibition, curated by Wendy Tarlow Kaplan, is organized by the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA. An illustrated catalog accompanies the exhibition and will be on sale in the Albany Institute’s Museum Shop for $10.00.

Accompanying “The Perfect Fit” will be a complementary exhibition entitled “Old Soles: Three Centuries of Shoes from the Albany Institute’s Collection.” The selection includes a variety of shoes ranging from a pair of brocaded silk women’s wedding shoes from the early 18th century to modern men’s and women’s footwear from the 20th century. The collection also includes protective over-shoes, pattens, slippers, jeweled buckles, work shoes, boots, and more. The Old Soles exhibition will be located in the museum’s Lansing Gallery, in proximity to many historic paintings in which the subjects are wearing shoes similar to those that will be on display.

Photo: Red riding shoes awarded to Miss Catherine Fitch for “Best Equestrian Rider” at the Albany Agricultural Society Fair, September, 1856, Wool felt and leather, 1856,
Gift of Margaret Boom, 1941.45, from Old Soles.

Last Chance to See Inportant Photo Exhibit

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The Fenimore Art Museum’s popular summer exhibition In Our Time: The World as Seen by Magnum Photographers will come to a close on Monday, September 6. In Our Time was organized to celebrate 50 years of photography at Magnum Photos Inc. and the 150th anniversary of the invention of photography.

This exhibition of 150 black-and-white photographs is from a comprehensive survey of Magnum Photos, Inc., which is considered to be one of the world’s most renowned photographic agencies. These images are a result of the extraordinary vision of the many talented photographers who have been associated with Magnum since its founding in 1947.

The broad events captured in these Magnum photographs include the D-Day landing in Normandy, France (1944)- James Dean in Times Square (1955)- Castro delivering a speech in Havanna (1959)- Martin Luther King receiving the Nobel Peace Prize (1963)- Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy at Arlington (1963)- women supporters of Ayatollah Khomeni in Iran (1979)- and a crack den in New York City (1988).

In Our Time: The World as Seen by Magnum Photographers is toured by George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film.

Other exhibitions currently on view at Fenimore Art Museum include John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women (through December 31, 2010), Empire Waists, Bustles and Lace: A Century of New York Fashion (through December 31, 2010), Watermark: Michele Harvey & Glimmerglass (through December 31, 2010), Virtual Folk: A Blog Readers’ Choice (through December 31, 2010). Ongoing Exhibitions include Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, The Coopers of Cooperstown, Genre Paintings from the Permanent Collection, and American Memory: Recalling the Past in Folk Art.

Museum hours: through October 11 (10 am – 5 pm), October 12 – December 31 (10 am &#8211 4 pm) Adult admission (13-64) is $12.00 and senior admission (65 and up) is $10.50. Children 12 and under are free as well as NYSHA members, active military, and retired career military. Visit our website for more information at www.fenimoreartmuseum.org.

NY Landscape Exhibit Opens at NYS Museum

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“Not Just Another Pretty Place: The Landscape of New York” opens at the New York State Museum September 3rd showcasing the many different ways views of New York have been captured and used by artists, photographers, scientists and others during the past 200 years.

This is the first exhibition of landscape art to be completely culled from the State Museum’s vast collections. On display in the Museum’s West Gallery, this exhibition takes a unique look at the landscape art form, looking beyond the purely aesthetic. It features more than 100 landscape scenes and includes paintings, photographs, prints, ceramics, furniture and much more.

The rich and varied landscape of New York State has been a subject of interest to artists, photographers, historians, and scientists alike for hundreds of years. Artists have used the landscape in their work to draw tourists to Niagara Falls or the Adirondacks, create allegorical scenes of the Hudson River for advertising, and document the ever-changing streets of New York City.

The exhibition includes works by Currier & Ives, Seneca Ray Stoddard, Jasper Francis Cropsey, Thomas Benjamin Pope, Fairfield Porter, Edward Gay, Asa Twitchell, E.L. Henry and William Henry Jackson.

A complementary photo exhibition will also open on September 3 outside West Gallery in the West Hall Corridor. “Wish You Were Here! New York State Photographed by You” will feature photographs of the scenic New York State landscape submitted by the general public. These can be photographs of a beloved vacation spot or even the backyard, neighborhood street or other favorite place. Images chosen for the exhibition, as well as others that are submitted, will also appear on the Museum’s website and flickr page. Photographs will still be accepted after September 3, since new ones will continually be added to both the gallery and website.

Those wishing to submit photos for “Wish You Were Here” will find further information online.

NYS Musuem Invites Exhibition Photo Submissions

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The New York State Museum is inviting the public to submit their digital photographs of scenic New York State landscapes, the best of which will be showcased in an upcoming Museum exhibition and displayed on the Museum website and Flickr page.

Scenic landscapes exist in every corner of New York State and are often found on picture perfect postcards that read “wish you were here.” The State Museum’s exhibition, Wish You Were Here! New York State Photographed by You will open in the State Museum’s West Hall Corridor on September 3, featuring a selection of the best landscape photographs submitted by the public. These can be photographs of a beloved vacation spot or even the backyard, neighborhood street or other favorite place. Images chosen for the exhibition, as well as others that are submitted, will also appear on the Museum’s website. Photographs will still be accepted after September 3, since new ones will continually be added to both the gallery and website.

Wish You Were Here will complement another exhibition in the Museum’s adjacent West Gallery &#8212- Not Just Another Pretty Place: The Landscape of New York. Also opening on September 3, this will be the first exhibition of landscape art to be culled from the Museum’s vast collections.

Those wishing to submit photos for Wish You Were Here will find further information at www.nysm.nysed.gov/wishyouwerehere.

Perceiving Buffalo Autistic Artists Exhibit

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The Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society (BECHS) has announced &#8220Perceiving Buffalo,&#8221 an exhibit of works by artists from Autistic Services, Inc. (ASI). The show opened in BECHS’ second-floor Community Gallery on July 1st and will run through Sunday, August 22, 2010. The exhibit is open to the public, and free with regular museum admission.

In addition, there will be a celebratory reception sponsored by Autistic Services Inc., on Thursday, July 22, from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Historical Society. The reception is free and open to the public.

The exhibit, curated by BECHS Museum Educator Tara Lyons, and facilitated by ASI staff members Veronica Federiconi, Dana Ranke, Todd Lesmeister, and Brian Kavanaugh features work by Aaron B., Dan C., Stacey M. and Neil S., four artists from ASI’s Arts Work Program.

The selected paintings and drawings mesh the works of the artists with BECHS’ mission to tell the stories of people and places in the region. The show highlights the artists’ interests in and creative interpretations of iconic Buffalo landmarks and community figures. Portraits include those of Ani DiFranco, Tim Russert, and one featuring three local newscasters. In addition, there is a series of drawings of Buffalo public school buildings. A short film of artist Neil S. will describe the artists’ creative process and his deep personal connection to the subject matter.

Autistic Services Inc. is a community organization that promotes the awareness of autism and provides treatment, education, and care for individuals with autism spectrum disorders. The Arts Work Program, through which the works in &#8220Perceiving Buffalo&#8221 were created, is part of the ASI’s individual therapy rooted in the creation of visual arts.

The reception will be held in the State Court of the Historical Society, and will feature a performance by No Words Spoken, a group of musicians which also evolved through Autistic Services programming. Wine and cheese will be served, and the public is invited to attend this free evening event.