Warren County

The Two Hendricks: A Mohawk Indian Mystery

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In September 1755 the most famous Indian in the world was killed in the Bloody Morning Scout that launched the Battle of Lake George. His name was Henderick Peters Theyanooguin in English, but he was widely known as King Hendrick. In an unfortunate twist of linguistic and historical fate, he shared the same first name as another famous Native American, Hendrick Tejonihokarawa, who although about 30 years his senior, was also famous in his own right. He was one of the “Four Indian Kings” who became a sensation in London in 1710, meet Queen Anne, and was wined and dined as an international celebrity.

Both Hendricks were Mohawk warriors. Both were Christians who aided Great Britain against France in their struggles for empire. Both served as important sachems who stressed cooperation instead of bloody confrontation and who helped negotiate the relationship between their fellow Mohawks and European colonials who recognized that the Iroquois Confederacy was critical to the balance of power in early 18th century America. Both Hendricks, were later confused by historians into one man. Eric Hinderaker’s The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery sets out to unearth the lives of these two important Mohawk men and untangle their stories from a confused history of colonial Native American relations.

King Hendrick (1692-1755), whose death in battle and burial place are memorialized in almost forgotten ground along the highway between Glens Falls and Lake George Village, was already famous at the time of the Bloody Morning Scout (the same attack that claimed the life of Ephraim Williams, founder of Williams College). The year before he died he gave an important speech at the Albany Congress of 1754. His death during the French and Indian War in the cause of British Empire however, propelled his fame and ships and taverns were named in his honor abroad.

The earlier Hendrick (c.1660-c.1735) took part in King Williams War, including the failed attempt to launch an all-out invasion of Canada in retaliation for Frontiac’s raid in February 1690 which destroyed Schenectady. He was among the Mohawks of Tiononderoge (the Lower Castle), who were swindled out of their lands along the Mohawk by their colonial neighbors.

Part of the value of The Two Hendricks, however, lies not only in its untangling of the two men, but also in coming to grips with the ways in which the swindling often worked both ways. Hendrick, a common Dutch name equivalent to Henry, was just one part of their names, but Mohawk names comprise the other part. Hinderaker demonstrates that both Hendricks gave as well as they got in building alliances, fame, and power that left them among the most famous Native Americans in history.

Photo Above: Henderick Peters Theyanooguin (King Hendrick), wearing the English coat he wore on public occasions and his distinctive facial tattoo. This print published just after his death and titled &#8220The brave old Hendrick, the great Sachem or Chief of the Mohawk Indians&#8221 is considered the most accurate likeness of the man.

Photo Below: Hendrick Tejonihokarawa, one of the &#8220Four Indian Kings&#8221 who traveled to London in 1710 The print, by John Verelst, is entitled &#8220Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row, Emperor of the Six Nations.&#8221 The title &#8220Emperor&#8221 was a bit of a stretch, he belonged to the council of the Mohawk tribe, but not to that of the Iroquois Confederacy as a whole.

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Hyde Collection Promotes Erin Coe to Deputy Director

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The Hyde Collection Executive Director David F. Setford has announced that Erin B. Coe has been promoted to deputy director, curatorial affairs and programming, which went into effect January 1, 2010.

Coe, who has served The Hyde as chief curator since 1999, was also appointed deputy director in 2007. In her new capacity, she will continue to serve as the Museum’s chief curator and take on additional responsibilities including overseeing the education department. In her expanded role, she works closely with The Hyde’s director of education on developing and growing the Museum’s offerings of adult programs and outreach initiatives.

“Erin is one of The Hyde’s true assets,” said Setford. “Her knowledge of art and Text Box: Erin B. Coe, deputy director, curatorial affairs and programming, The Hyde Collectionthe museum world, along with her strong connection to the community, make her the perfect person to oversee both the curatorial and programming activities of the Museum.”

Coe served as in-house curator for last year’s highly successful Degas & Music exhibition and has curated more than twenty-five exhibitions at The Hyde Collection. She is responsible for the current exhibition, An Enduring Legacy: American Impressionist Landscape Paintings from the Thomas Clark Collection, on view in the Charles R. Wood Gallery through March 28, 2010. She recently authored an article for the prestigious American Art Review and has written for several other national periodicals, including The Magazine Antiques and the Catalogue of Antiques and Fine Art.

During her tenure at The Hyde, she oversaw the interior restoration of Hyde House, the Museum’s historic building and has been the recipient of several honors including The Business Review’s “40 Under Forty”and the Brunshwig & Fils Scholarship to attend the prestigious Attingham Summer School for the Study of Architecture, Fine, and Decorative Arts in the U.K.

Coe has served on several area boards, including the Marcella Sembrich Memorial Association, and the Lake George Arts Project. She currently serves on the board of the de Blasiis Chamber Music Series.

Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region Call For Entries

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The Hyde Collection announces the call for entries associated with the 2010 Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region Juried Exhibition, which will be on view at the Museum from October 1 through December 12, 2010.

Founded in 1936, the exhibition is one of the longest running annual juried exhibitions in the country. The Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region 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.

Juror for the 2010 exhibition is Charles Desmarais, deputy director of 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.

&#8220The Hyde is thrilled to join the two Albany institutions in bringing the best of our region’s art to residents and visitors alike,” said Hyde Executive Director David F. Setford. &#8220Each year, the caliber of works submitted for this annual show is testament to the artistic community that thrives in the areas surrounding the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers.”

As many as 300 artists are expected to submit works, in a variety of media, from which approximately fifty will be selected for the exhibition. Eligible artists include those who reside within a 100-mile radius of either Glens Falls or the Capital Region. The deadline for entries is March 26, 2010. Awards will be announced at the exhibition’s opening reception scheduled for October 1, 2010.

Artists interested in receiving information on the exhibition are asked to call (518) 792-1761 ext. 35. Submission entry forms and additional information are available on the Museum’s website at www.hydecollection.org.

Hyde Collection Announces 2010 Exhibition Schedule

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The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls has announced its 2010 Exhibition Schedule. This year’s schedule includes American Impressionist landscape paintings, twentieth-century Modern art, a regional juried high school art show, a major exhibition of the work of Andrew Wyeth, and the museum will also play host for the first time to the long-running Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region, an annual juried show founded in 1936. The complete schedule from the Hyde Collection announcement is below.

Through Sunday, March 28, 2010
An Enduring Legacy:
American Impressionist Landscape Paintings from the Thomas Clark Collection

This exhibition presents sixty-four paintings from the private collection of Saratoga
County, New York resident Thomas Clark. For twenty years, Clark has been amassing a significant group of pre-1940 American Impressionist landscape paintings with more than 100 works in the collection. Considered one of the finest private collections of this genre in upstate New York, it is testament to the enduring legacy of Impressionist painting in American art.

The collection, on public display for the first time, comprises examples from the last
great generation of landscape painters who emerged during, and in the aftermath of, the American Impressionist movement (1880-1920). Many of these artists were students and/or sketching partners of the seminal figures in Impressionism in America, such as William Merritt Chase and John Henry Twachtman. The Collection offers a comprehensive treatment of the regional schools of Impressionist activity in America. Forty-seven artists are featured in the exhibition, including Walter Emerson Baum, John Joseph Enneking, Emile A. Gruppe, Hayley Lever, Frederick Mulhaupt, George Loftus Noyes, and Harry A. Vincent. The exhibition is curated by Erin Coe, chief curator and deputy director of The Hyde Collection and is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue. Clark has announced his intention to make a future donation of his remarkable collection to The Hyde where it will greatly enhance the Museum’s current holdings of American art.

Through February 28, 2010
Divided by a common language?
British and American Works from the Murray Collection

Approximately twenty works of twentieth-century Modern art, donated to the Museum by the late Jane Murray, are on display in Hoopes Gallery. Works included in this exhibition were part of the first significant donation of twentieth-century art received by The Hyde and helped to form the foundation of the Museum’s Modernist holdings. Jane Murray passed away in April 2009 and bequeathed the remainder of her substantial collection to the Museum.

Curated by The Hyde’s Executive Director David F. Setford, the exhibition reflects one woman’s journey into the world of art and the creative process itself. Represented in the exhibition are British artists including Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, John Piper, Howard Hodgkin, and Paul Mount. American artists include Gregory Amenoff, American, b. 1948, Gregory Amenoff, Betty Parsons, Stuart Davis, and Ellsworth Kelly. The works selected examine the similarities and differences between American and British works of the period, as both are areas of particular strength in the Murray
Murray Collection.

April 11 through May 23
Nineteenth Regional Juried High School Art Show

The Hyde proudly hosts one hundred works in various media by the best of area high
school art students. Entries into the competition average approximately 1,200 per year
and the top 100 works were chosen by jurors to be highlighted in this annual spring event, showcased in the Museum’s Charles R. Wood Gallery.

This unique show allows participating students to experience the preparation, submission, and jurying process crucial to their artistic development. The young artists entering the competition hail from as many as forty area schools located in Warren, Washington, Saratoga, Hamilton, and Essex counties.

June 12 through September 5
Andrew Wyeth: An American Legend

The Hyde Collection introduces the broad span of work by Andrew Wyeth in its major summer exhibition for 2010. Organized by The Hyde and curated by Executive Director David F. Setford and Deputy Director and Chief Curator Erin B. Coe in association with the Farnsworth Art Museum of Rockland, Maine, the exhibition will mark the first opportunity since the artist’s death in 2009 to begin to critically reevaluate his contribution to and position in American art of the twentieth century. Works will include pencil, watercolor, dry brush, and tempera works, and will feature sections devoted to early coastal watercolors and landscape paintings, as well as a look at Wyeth’s models, his interest in vernacular architecture, and his connection
with the Regionalist tradition and Magic Realism.

The exhibition will feature approximately fifty works, with the core from the Farnsworth Art Museum. Also on view will be The Hyde’s own Wyeth – The Ledge and the Island, 1937 – and major works from Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Hood Museum of Art, as well as from other museums and private collections.

The Museum continues its summer collaborations with other arts organizations in the region by coordinating a series of lectures, exhibitions, and performances with Wyeth-related themes.

October 10 through December 12
Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region

For the first time, The Hyde Collection is host of the Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region, one of the longest-running collaborative juried exhibitions in the country. The Museum joins the Albany Institute of History and Art and the University Art Museum at the University at Albany as the third collaborative sponsor of the exhibition, which is hosted by the organizations on a rotating basis. Founded in 1936, this annual show provides a leading benchmark for contemporary art in the Upper Hudson Valley. The exhibition is open to artists residing within a 100-mile radius of either Glens Falls or the Capital District. Past jurors have included artists, curators, critics, art historians, and art dealers such as Edward Hopper (1941), George Rickey (1971), Kenneth Noland (1977), Wolf Kahn (1980), Grace Gluck (1984), Dan Cameron (1997), and Ivan Karp (2005).

For the 2010 exhibition, The Hyde has invited Charles Desmarais, the Deputy Director of Art at the Brooklyn Museum, to be the guest juror. Mr. Desmarais leads the Brooklyn Museum’s collection, conservation, education, exhibition, and library departments.

Photo: George Loftus Noyes, American, 1864-1954, River Reflections, Evening ca. 1900, Oil on canvas on artist’s board, 9 7/8 x 11 in., Promised gift of Thomas Clark to The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY.

Hyde Collection Announces New Board Members

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The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, Warren County, has announced new members and 2010 officers of its board of trustees. New to the Museum board are Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy- Joseph F. Raccuia, president and CEO of Finch Paper, LLC- and Leo A. Rigby, CPA, Partner in Ross Rigby & Patten LLP.

Dr. Jackson, who has led Rensselaer since 1999, has held senior leadership positions in government, business, and academe. She serves on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Prior to her leadership of Rensselaer, Dr. Jackson served as chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (1995-1999). She holds a Ph.D. in theoretical elementary particle physics and a S.B. in physics from M.I.T.

Joseph Raccuia joined Finch Paper in February 2009 after serving as president and CEO of SCA Tissue-North America. A twenty-five year veteran of the paper industry, Raccuia began his career in the Glens Falls area with the former Encore Paper Company in South Glens Falls. A resident of Wilton, he holds a B.A. in business administration and earned his MBA from Wagner College.

Leo Rigby is vice president and treasurer of Ross Rigby & Patten LLP, and the partner in charge of accounting and auditing services. He is a graduate of Clarkson University and a certified information systems auditor. Rigby is vice president of the Glens Falls Rotary Club and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Leading the 2010 board of trustees as chairman is Alan E. Redeker, who has been a member of The Hyde’s board of trustees for seven years and has most recently served the organization’s board vice chairman in 2009. Redeker is principal of Redeker Management Consulting, LLC and past president of Glens Falls Lehigh Cement Company. He succeeds Beth Saunders, who concluded her one-year term as chairman and will continue to serve The Hyde as immediate past chairman and as a trustee.

Officers for 2010 include Candace Wait as vice chairman, Dr. Michael J. Gardner as treasurer, and Michael S. Rapaport, Esq. as secretary. Wait, who joined the Museum’s board in 2004 is program director for The Corporation of Yaddo in Saratoga Springs. Gardner has been on the board for two years and is immediate past president of Prime Care Physicians in Albany, NY. Rapaport, a trustee since 2004, is a partner in Rapaport Brothers PC of New York, NY and Lake George, NY.

North Creek: Songs and Stories of Loggers, Miners

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Begin the New Year with an afternoon of engaging tunes and tales. Join the staff of the Adirondack Museum for &#8220Working for the Man: Songs and Stories of Adirondack Lumberjacks and Miners.&#8221 The special program will be held at the Tannery Pond Community Center in North Creek, New York on Sunday, January 10, 2010 at 3:30 p.m. There will be no charge for museum members and children of elementary school age or younger. The fee for non-members is $5.00.

The historic work of loggers and miners was framed by dangerous conditions, back breaking work, long hours, and low pay. Although daily life was hard and often heartbreaking, it was also filled with music, laughter, stories, and strong community ties.

&#8220Working for the Man&#8221 will feature musician Lee Knight singing traditional ballads of logging, mining, and rural life. Museum Educator Christine Campeau will join Knight to share historic photographs, artifacts from museum collections, and stories of work, family, and life in Adirondack logging and mining communities.

Born in the Adirondacks, Lee Knight now lives in Cashiers, North Carolina. He is a singer, storyteller, song collector, and teacher of folklore, folk life, and folk music. He performs regularly at concerts, folk festivals, and summer camps, where he tells stories, sings ballads, and calls dances. He has appeared with Pete Seeger, Jean Ritchie, Bill Monroe, Alan Lomax, and many others. He will play traditional hand-made instruments.

Following the program, Lee Knight will perform at the Copperfield Inn from 4:30 p.m. until 6:00 p.m.

Photo: Ruby Mountain Mine, North River Garnet Company. Collection of the Adirondack Museum.

Hyde Exhibition of Modern Art to Open November 28

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This Saturday, November 28, The Hyde Collection will open Divided by a common language? British and American Works from The Murray Collection. The exhibition of approximately twenty works of Modern art from the twentieth century are part of a larger collection donated to the Museum by the late Jane Murray.

Between 1991 and 1996, Murray gave nearly sixty works of Modern art to the Museum, the first significant donation of twentieth-century art received by The Hyde. An additional group of works was bequeathed by Murray upon her death earlier this year. This donation helped to form the foundation of the Museum’s Modernist holdings.

The exhibit, curated by The Hyde’s Executive Director David F. Setford, celebrates the works donated by Murray and reflects the breadth of her collection, while looking at differences and similarities between British and American Modernism. Artists represented in the exhibition include Britain’s Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, John Piper, Howard Hodgkin, and Paul Mount. American artists include Gregory Amenoff, Betty Parsons, Stuart Davis, and Ellsworth Kelly.

“This exhibition was organized as a tribute to Jane Murray’s legacy,” said Setford, “Her generosity to our Museum is only surpassed by the attention she paid in selecting works for her impressive Modern art collection.“

According to Setford, the exhibition pieces were selected to help visitors examine the similarities and differences between American and British works of the period, as both are areas of particular strength in the Murray Collection.

The exhibition in Hoopes Gallery will be open through Sunday, February 28, 2010. Admission to the Museum complex is free for members. Voluntary suggested donation for non-members is five dollars. For more information, contact The Hyde Collection at 518-792-1761 or visit www.hydecollection.org.

 

Books: Adirondack, Lumber Capital of The World

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As you might expect, my desk-side book shelves are heavily burdened with Adirondack books. Guides to hiking, climbing, wildlife, forestry- books of photography, sit beside fiction and various technical reports &#8211 all here within easy reach. Most are history &#8211 general histories, political histories, environmental and cultural histories, books on logging, tanning, prohibition, Native Americans, county histories. Recently I received a tidy volume on Adirondack logging history that focuses on Warren County, Phillip J. Harris’s Adirondack, Lumber Capital of the World, which seems to have drawn from them all to good effect.

Harris’s book takes on, with incredible detail, the people and places that made the southeastern Adirondacks unique in the history of the American lumber industry. In 1850, New York produced more lumber &#8211 about a billion board feet a year from around a half million trees &#8211 than any other state in the nation. Southern Warren County was where much of the lumber was milled and where the Adirondack lumber barons reigned. Their names, James Morgan, William, Norman and Alison Fox, Jones Ordway, James Caldwell, John Thurman, Samuel Prime, Henry Crandall, Zenus VanDusen, Jeremiah and Daniel Finch, Augustus Sherman, George Freeman, William McEchron, are found scattered through the county’s history books &#8211 until now.

Harris’s book takes on the large and small, from the first pioneers and their patents, to the lumber camps, jobbers, log drives, log marks, and sawmills. The Delaware and Hudson Railroad is featured in one chapter, the Fort William Henry Hotel in another. In 1865 there were some 4,000 sawmills in New York State, one hundred years later there were fewer the 200 &#8211 today, maybe fewer then 50. One of the bigger contributions Harris makes to the history of the Adirondack lumber industry is in explaining how that came to pass.

Hyde Collection To Present Andrew Wyeth: An American Legend

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The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, Warren County, has announced that its major 2010 summer exhibition will be &#8220Andrew Wyeth: An American Legend&#8221 will be on view from June 12 through September 5, 2010. The exhibition, organized by The Hyde Collection, will cover a broad span of Wyeth’s work including sections devoted to early coastal watercolors and landscape paintings, as well as a look at Wyeth’s models, his interest in vernacular architecture, and his connection to both the Regionalist tradition and Magic Realism.

The exhibition will comprise approximately fifty works, with the core coming from the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine. Featured in the exhibition will be examples of the artist’s works created in dry brush, watercolor, pencil, and tempera &#8211 including The Hyde’s own Wyeth watercolor – The Ledge and the Island, 1937- as well as works on loan from museums and private collections.

The exhibit will be curated by Hyde Executive Director David F. Setford and Deputy Director and Chief Curator Erin B. Coe and will be the first opportunity since the Wyeth’s death earlier this year to begin to critically reevaluate his contribution to American twentieth century art.

The Museum will produce a catalogue to accompany the exhibition and also hopes to collaborate with other arts organizations in the Glens Falls region in coordinating a series of lectures, exhibitions, and performances with Wyeth-related themes.

Hyde Collection Receives Gift of Major Crockwell Painting

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The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, NY has announced that it has received a gift of a 1934 oil painting by Douglass Crockwell (1904-1968) entitled &#8220Paper Workers, Finch Pruyn & Co,&#8221 from Mr. and Mrs. Samuel P. Hoopes, of Bolton Landing, New York.

Douglass Crockwell was a founding trustee of The Hyde Collection, acted as its first director, and was famous for his illustrative paintings for such national publications as the Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look, and Esquire. His commercial illustrations were commissioned by such manufacturing and industry giants as General Electric, General Motors, Coca Cola, and Standard Oil. Crockwell lived and worked in Glens Falls from 1932 until his death in 1968.

“Although Crockwell is more widely known as a commercial illustrator, this painting is a remarkable example of his endeavor as a fine artist &#8212- long before he became the famous illustrator of the 1940s and 50s,” stated Hyde Chief Curator Erin B. Coe. The painting depicts two anonymous Finch Pruyn workers smoothing a massive roll of newsprint on a towering paper machine while in the lower left corner a manager supervises their work. Crockwell painted two nearly identical versions of this image of labor during the Great Depression, when many American workers were unemployed. “Crockwell is boldly presenting the primary industry of Glens Falls at the height of the Depression,” added Coe. The first version belongs to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. and was created by Crockwell in 1934 for the Works Progress Administration. This second version, donated to The Hyde, was made by the artist for Finch Pruyn & Co. later that same year.

According to The Hyde’s Executive Director David F. Setford, the gift is a major acquisition for a number of reasons. “Sam Hoopes saw the opportunity to share with the Museum a piece of Glens Falls history. The image of Paper Workers, Finch Pruyn & Co. connects us with the industrial roots that allowed The Hyde Collection to begin.”

The painting joins two other works in the Museum’s collection by Crockwell. The first, acquired in 1971, is a painted illustration for the Saturday Evening Post and was gifted to The Hyde by Crockwell’s wife and son. The second is an unfinished portrait of Louis Fiske Hyde, which was donated to the Museum by Mrs. Crockwell and her family in 1979.

&#8220Paper Workers, Finch Pruyn & Co.&#8221 was presented by The Hyde’s Collections Committee to the Board of Trustees for approval at their meeting on September 21, 2009. The work will be sent to the Williamstown Art Conservation Center for conservation treatment, and when the painting returns it will be placed on public view.

Photo: Douglass Crockwell, American, 1904-1968 &#8220Paper Workers, Finch Pruyn & Co.,&#8221 Glens Falls, New York, 1934, Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in.