September 14 - November 2, 2013 Curated by Kate McGloughlin
2470 Route 212, Woodstock New York 12498 845-679-2388 • www.woodstockschoolofart.org • wsart@earthlink.net
The difference, of course, is the trees. As I’ve rifled through collections holding the landscape paintings created by a century’s worth of Woodstock painters, read early accounts of their struggles, theories and points of view, discovered diaries depicting their relationships, riffs and romances, I see that the only real difference between those of us painting here today and the men and women who made this town famous is the number of trees that have taken over the Woodstock landscape. In my mind, the story of landscape painting in Woodstock is one of visionary instructors and their students, many of whom went on to influence others either by their own teaching or by creating a hotbed of artistic activity which beckoned artists from all over the country. In 1991, when my teacher, Robert Angeloch, first introduced me to the work of the legendary painters of the first part of the twentieth century, it was the work of Bolton Brown, Birge Harrison, John F. Carlson, and Charles Rosen that first struck a chord in me. I read as much as I could find
about each of them and immediately felt a kinship that persists today. Bolton Brown, of course, got us started by hiking through the Catskills to find Utopia for Ralph Whitehead. He found his way through a break in the woods on Meads Mountain and was startled by the beauty of the Hudson winding her way through Bolton Brown the lowlands of these mountains. He saw the possibilities inherent in that landscape, and hundreds of artists have benefited from that view and others like it since that time. Though his descendants have been family friends with my own family for generations, it’s only through the more subjective lens of art history that I’ve come to realize Brown’s importance in my own life as an artist. Included in this exhibition are three small landscapes, done on location with Brown as the instructor and Edna Thurber and John Bentley as students. Each is a stirring example of American Impressionism, and proof that once there were acres of rolling hills that led to these mountains without the interruption of trees!
Bolton Brown, of course, got us started by hiking through the Catskills to find Utopia for Ralph Whitehead
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John Fabian Carlson was my man, right off the bat. I knew his granddaughter, Dinah, from high school and learned that he was not only a great painter and teacher, but he was a family man who loved to sing and tell stories and was hardy enough to climb around in these winter woods (without gloves) with his pochade box and stool to get with Nature. His reverence for the landscape coupled with his understanding of design and of all things particular to landscape painting set him apart from the others, in my mind. I’ve come to realize that it wasn’t just his work, but all that I’ve imagined about him through historical references and personal anecdotes that have kept him a favorite of mine. It’s hard to find a good landscape painter in Woodstock who doesn’t in some way or another, trace back in instructor-lineage or at least devotion and admiration to John Carlson or his teacher, Birge Harrison. I read on. Birge Harrison! I couldn’t believe the shimmering surfaces of his tonalist work, and the air that he got in each of the paintings I studied. I read accounts about him and learned that he was Carlson’s friend and mentor, and loved the fact that, as the first director of the Art Students League at Woodstock, he cared enough about other artists and their work to take time away from
an already flourishing career as a painter to spend time with students in the field and studio. That he loved responding to nature more deeply than realizing a technical facility at the cost of losing the vitality of the painting is why he remains one of my artist fathers. Even though he was branded a conservative in this burgeoning little artists’ colony, Harrison’s open mindedness toward his students’ work and the emerging modernist movement was enlightening to me. In a treatise on landscape painting he states, “the desire is to develop a number of individual painters, not a school.” That’s pretty humble. Carlson and Andrew Dasburg were among his first students as were Cecil Chichester, Florence Ballin (Cramer), Frank Swift Chase, Harry Leith Ross, Anita Smith, Eugene Speicher, and others in this exhibition, and it was the ferment of that artistic period in Woodstock that put us on the map. Though Dasburg, Mattson John Carlson and Cramer followed their modernist course, the others remained enchanted with the mood and impression of light on these hills. It was, of course, the presence of The Art Students League’s “Woodstock School of Landscape Painting”, and the reputations of the highly regarded instructors that drew
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young artists numbering in credibility to these young artists the hundreds to Woodstock exploding with divergent ideas beginning in 1906. Some and artistic energy. That there stayed to build studios and was once carved a place at the become permanent residents, table for artistic innovation, others fell in love with alternative palettes, materials, fellow artists and started the and predilections, is to me the families that are, by this time, crux of what Birge Harrison synonymous with the artists’ was implying about “aiding colony of Woodstock. These and abetting” the development were the artists that lured of individual painters. This is, George Bellows, Eugene Speicher, Charles Rosen, Elsie Speicher, John other artists like Dorothy Carroll, Mildred Rosen, Inez Carroll, Emma Bellows, c. 1930 perhaps, the Woodstock story. Varian, the Avery’s, and This offering is Anton Otto Fischer, who not meant to be locked in were not associated with the scholarship, and this exhibition League but were drawn to the is by no means the complete colony by the environment of story of landscape painting Woodstock and the reputation in Woodstock. It is a note of of its artistic diversity admiration from a descendant blossoming there. of this land and painting I met Charles Rosen’s granddaughter, Kit Worthington tradition— paying homage to both— and a selection of artists Taylor, a few months after I was introduced to his work. and some of their output, which marks their relationship to I clung to Kit and peppered her with questions about her each other and to this place. The biographies in this catalog “granddaddy”, and she confirmed what every other account are little more than thumbnail sketches used to compose offered; Rosen was a giant not only in terms of his fluid a narrative that tells the tale of the relationships that built leap from Impressionism to Modernism, but as an inspiring Woodstock. Those of us painting here today owe our artistic instructor and next director of the flourishing school of forbears lasting gratitude for staking the claim and holding painting in Woodstock. In him, the radicals of “Rock City the bar exceedingly high; their efforts set a precedence that Group” found a mentor and friend who gave an air of we strive for each time we head toward the woods with our
...others fell in love with fellow artists and started the families that are, by this time, synonymous with the artists’ colony of Woodstock
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painting kits and easels to find the large motifs of light and dark, to make them our own in responding to this place at this time. And so the tradition continues. Included in this exhibition is the work of a handful of my colleagues at The Woodstock School of Art. Each shares my passion for capturing this landscape on paper or canvas, and almost all of them have had shared their gifts with eager students here in Woodstock. They represent the very best in their field at this time in Woodstock’s history, and as we’ve painted and taught together here at The Woodstock School of Art, they have become my cherished friends. Some came to study, some came to teach, all stayed to paint this landscape, at least for a while. For over a century,
the binding thread that has woven the story of this colony together has been the generosity of painters teaching other painters, passing on information and experience that has been the truth for that artist. This exhibition is dedicated to our students at The Woodstock School of Art who have picked up the mantle and will carry it, through all these damned trees, through this next century.
Kate McGloughlin (b. 1962) came to The Woodstock School of Art in 1991 to study with Robert Angeloch; she started teaching printmaking in 1993, landscape painting in 2005 and has been President of the Board of Directors since 2010.
John Kleinhans
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The Woodstock landscape was the primary reason admiration for these people remains steadfast because I’ve Bolton Brown selected the small farming town as the ideal done the same thing - met snakes at Little Deep and suffered site for Englishman Ralph Whitehead to build his arts and frostbite painting in the Peekamoose Valley. I wear a yearcrafts colony in 1902. The site had to meet the standards that round sunburn on my face, because I’m compelled by this Whitehead’s teacher, John Ruskin, had set for an ideal arts place to be out in it, capturing what’s before me on canvas.” environment in his book, Modern Painters. The land had to A century before Woodstock became an artists’ colony, be at an elevation of about 1,500 feet and suitable for growing the painters of the Hudson River School had explored the wheat and grapes. After hiking over much of the Catskill range region. Artists like Thomas Cole and Frederic Church were in search of such a site, Brown gazed down upon Woodstock in search of sweeping vistas and the grandeur of mountain from the wide clove of Overlook Mountain. What he saw, he peaks. Woodstock painters of the 20th century depicted later wrote, was “almost as blue as the sea, that extraordinarily more intimate views. In terms of style, Woodstock landscapes beautiful view, amazing in extent, the silver Hudson, losing of the early 20th century reflect some of the movements itself in remote haze.” He was already painting the landscape that were revolutionizing European painting for two major in words. reasons: several of the artists had studied in Europe before Driving around Woodstock today provides an experience settling in Woodstock; others were jolted out of complacency similar to what it must have been like to take a horse and by the landmark 1913 Armory Show in New York City. carriage around Paris a century ago, chancing upon scenes Birge Harrison, who taught painting at Byrdcliffe, had from impressionist paintings. So prolific were landscape studied in Paris in the late 1800s. His luminous tonalist painters in Woodstock over the last 110 years, it’s difficult to landscape paintings reflect his embrace of modern ideas. look at a barn George Bellows painted, a corner that George Harrison was succeeded by his pupil, John Carlson, who Ault depicted, or the ever-present Overlook Mountain favored an impressionist approach. Carlson’s wife, Margaret without visualizing the scene through the artist’s eyes. Goddard Carlson’s “Summer Pasture” is a gorgeous example “I chose artists who saw these hills and had to paint of Woodstock Impressionism. Andrew Dasburg and Florence them,” says curator Kate McGloughlin. Ballin Cramer also studied in Europe, “These artists came to love this land as absorbing avant-garde ideas before making ... the “Rock City deeply as the farmers who settled it, each Woodstock their home. Rebels” and other local toiling to bring their work to fruition and Woodstock artists were well represented in artists enthusiastically each meeting with extreme elements of the Armory Show. A group known as the the Catskills to finish their work. My great embraced new styles of “Rock City Rebels” and other local artists
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Frank Swift Chase
enthusiastically embraced new styles of painting displayed on the Armory walls. Judson Smith’s “Waterfall” is emblematic of Woodstock abstraction, highly stylized yet adhering to a recognizable scene. In “Speicher’s House” Charles Rosen fractures the planes of his neighbor’s home and the surrounding landscape for his foray into semi-cubist abstraction, but he doesn’t stray far from representation either. Not all of the artists in the large Woodstock community were enamored of modernist tendencies. Frank Swift Chase and others continued to paint in a traditional style. Eugene Speicher, who often went on plein-air painting excursions with his friend and neighbor, George Bellows, employed a more expressionist style. Henry Mattson’s untitled landscape is just as much about the artist’s reaction to the energy of the scene as it is about representation. Tonalism is perhaps the must subtle movement in all of art history, but the genre, characterized by canvases dominated by one color, was practiced by many Woodstock artists. Henry Leith Ross’s “Winter Night” is a wonderful example, depicting a home barely perceived through a palpably hazy atmosphere. A century after Tonalism was prominent in Woodstock, Eric Angeloch takes a similar approach in his poetic canvas, “Dryads.” Because of Woodstock’s proximity to New York, area artists were sophisticated and as diverse as the art world at large. Zulma Steele employed a near-fauvist use of heightened color in her vibrant Woodstock landscapes. George Ault,
who would later pursue a dark form of Precisionism, is represented here by “Late November In The Catskills,” a landscape that manages to be haunted and bleak despite its use of heightened color. By the mid-20th century artists like Milton Avery had broken free of conventions. In “Pasture and Mountain” he expresses a more idiosyncratic, minimalist view of his surroundings. Some of the same waterfalls, viewed from a distance as grand, romantic subjects by the Hudson River School painters of the 19th century, are approached more intimately by contemporary artists like Mariella Bisson and Staats Fasoldt. While Fasoldt’s image uses the waterfall to harmoniously divide the composition, Bisson’s work fuses elements of Abstract Expressionism with Realism. Paula Nelson’s “The Woods Near Peter’s Field” depicts the scene through slashes of color at once realistic and abstract. Bolton Brown, who created subtle, tonalist paintings and lithographs, also executed a series of small panels full of vivid color. Like many of the artists in the exhibition, he was fully immersed in Woodstock. He bathed in the Sawkill Creek which ran by his home and figured prominently in many of his compositions. His gravestone at Woodstock’s Artists Cemetery is a boulder, brought there from one of the region’s most beautiful and oft-depicted sites, Fawn’s Leap. Brown had it placed between the trees where it blended into the scene, creating, in his death, another beautiful Woodstock landscape.
Ron Netsky is Chairman of the Art Department at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY and has taught at The Woodstock School of Art since 1995. He was co-curator of Leaving For The Country: George Bellows At Woodstock, a traveling exhibition.
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John F. Carlson (1874-1945) Eventide c. 1910 Oil on board 4 x 6 The James Cox Gallery at Woodstock Carlson came to Woodstock in 1904 on scholarship to study with Birge Harrison at Byrdcliffe, and returned to the League’s newly formed summer school in Woodstock in 1906. He became Harrison’s assistant in 1907 and succeeded Harrison as director at the Art Students League from 1911 until 1918. In 1922, he returned to Woodstock to establish The John F. Carlson School of Painting, and in 1928 published Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting.
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Margaret Goddard Carlson (1882-1964) Summer Pasture c. 1915 Oil on canvas 16 x 18 The James Cox Gallery at Woodstock Carlson came to Byrdcliffe in 1903 and befriended the Whiteheads and Carl Eric Lindin and his wife. In 1907, she met and studied with John F. Carlson who would succeed Harrison as instructor at the Art Students League in Woodstock. They married in 1913. She produced most of her works from 1910-1920, after which time she focused her energies on raising three sons and managing her husband’s career.
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Birge Harrison (1854-1929) Untitled c. 1910 Oil on board 8 ¼ x 9 ¾ WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of Alice Lewis Initially at Byrdcliffe to teach painting based on his tonalist theories, at John F. Carlson’s urging, Harrison became the first director of the Art Students League of New York’s Woodstock School of Landscape Painting in 1906, where he taught for the next five years. In 1909 he published a collection of his seminars in a book entitled Landscape Painting. Harrison remained a revered and active member of the artists’ community until his death in 1929.
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Alfred Hutty (1887-1954) Untitled n.d. Oil on board 8 x 10 Morgan Anderson Consulting Hutty met Harrison in St Louis and followed him to Woodstock in 1908, where he was also associated with the Blue Dome Group. He later returned to Woodstock and purchased a farm on Broadview Road. Hutty served on the exhibition committee at the Woodstock Artists Association, and, while never veering from what was considered his conservative style, extolled the virtues of divergent artistic views of the modernists in Woodstock. He regularly summered in Charleston, SC, where he became a leader of the Charleston Renaissance.
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Bolton Brown (1864-1936) Woodstock Church c. 1913 Oil on board 8 x 10 Eric Angeloch Collection In 1902, Brown explored the Catskills for Ralph Whitehead to find the site of what would become the Byrdcliffe colony. He left Byrdcliffe disillusioned with its leaders and began his career as a landscape painter and instructor at Woodstock. After returning from England where he studied Lithography, Brown became Woodstock’s most avid lithographer, printing his own images, and those of fellow artists, including George Bellows, John Sloan and Rockwell Kent. His methods and formulas are still used in The Woodstock School of Art’s graphics shop today. He is considered the father of lithography as an artistic medium in America.
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Andrew Dasburg (1887-1979) Woodstock Landscape n.d. Oil on board 8 ½ x 10 Morgan Anderson Consulting Dasburg studied under Harrison at the Art Students League summer school. In reaction to his instructor’s subtle tonalist canvasses, together with fellow artists, formed the “Sunflower Club”, employing bright daubs of color in an energetic style. He became a co-founder of the Woodstock Artists Association and became an instructor at the Woodstock School of Painting. Beginning in 1918 made frequent trips to Taos, NM, settling there permanently in 1929. Dasburg is generally regarded as one of the fathers of American Modernism.
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Doris Lee (1905-1983) Study for the Farmer’s Wife n.d. Pastel on paper 4 x 6 D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc. Lee came to paint in Woodstock in 1931, after studying with Arnold Blanch in San Francisco. She began a rich and varied artistic career and married Arnold Blanch in 1939.
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Walter Goltz (1875-1956) Untitled c. 1940 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 Collection of Eva van Rijn From 1909 to 1922, Goltz served as John F. Carlson’s teaching assistant at the Art Students League in Woodstock, often helping with easel critiques in the field during landscape painting sessions.
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Karen O’Neil (b 1960) Stream Rocks 2013 Oil on canvas 11 x 14 Courtesy of the artist O’Neil came to Woodstock in 1988 as an artist workspace resident at The Woodstock School of Art and has been teaching there since 1990. She also teaches at the Art Students League in New York and its Vytlacil campus. Oneil is married to Peter Clapper.
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Dudley Summers (1892-1975) Big Deep c. 1920 Oil on board 6 x 8 Eric Angeloch Collection Summers studied at the Art Students League in New York with Thomas Fogarty, Charles Chapman and F. R. Gruger. In the 1920’s he enjoyed success as an illustrator for numerous American magazines. In later years he specialized in children’s portraits. Summers spent many seasons in Woodstock painting the landscape where he came good friends with John Carlson.
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Arnold Blanch (1896-1968) Landscape 1929 Oil on canvas 17 x 19 WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of Eric Kaz Blanch came to study with Charles Rosen in 1919, and in 1923, settled in Woodstock with his first wife, Lucile Blanch. He became an instructor at the second incarnation of the Art Students League in Woodstock, housed in what is now The Woodstock School of Art. His students, Robert Angeloch and Frances R. Basch, are included in this exhibition. Blanch’s modernist paintings are grouped with the Social Realist movement.
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Sidney Laufman (1891-1985) Landscape 1940 Oil on canvas mounted on Masonite 10 x 13 WAAM Permanent Collection, purchased with support from the Richard A. Florsheim Fund Laufman studied with Robert Henri at the Art Students League in New York, 1920-1933, then in Paris before the war. In 1940 he and his wife moved to Woodstock, where he was active at the Woodstock Artists Association and the newly reopened Art Students League summer school in the late 1940s. Laufman remained in Woodstock throughout the 1970s.
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Mariella Bisson (b. 1954) Waterfall Way 2009 Watercolor/gouache 12 x 16 Courtesy of the artist Bisson first came to Woodstock as an artist in residence in Palenville in 1989-90. She returned as an artist in residence at The Woodstock School of At in 1999, where she became an instructor in 2003.
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Judson Smith (1880-1962) Waterfall on Sawkill c. 1930 Oil on canvas 16 Âź x 24 Âź WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of Gregory E. Lindin Inspired by the modernist movement evolving in Woodstock at that time, Smith settled in Woodstock in 1922. In 1931, with Rosen and McFee, he co-founded and became director of the Woodstock School of Painting, which continued with Cramer, Mattson and other artists as instructors until the onset of World War II.
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Lucile Blanch (1895-1981) Landscape with Stream 1936 Watercolor 12 x 18 WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of Ira Brandes Blanch came to study with Charles Rosen in 1919. In 1922 she lived with her husband, Arnold Blanch, in the Maverick colony where she ran a rustic café called “Intelligentsia” until 1923, when they moved to Woodstock. She later taught at the Art Students League in Woodstock. She served as chair of the Woodstock Artists Association during World War II.
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Neil McDowell Ives (1892-1946) Woodstock Landscape n.d. Oil on canvas 22 x 28 Morgan Anderson Consulting Ives came from The Philadelphia Academy of Art and the Art Students League in New York to the Art Students League summer school in Woodstock in 1913 to study with John Carlson.
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Edna Thurber (1887- 1981) Summer Landscape n.d. Oil on board 12 x 16 Collection of Kate McGloughlin Thurber studied with Bolton Brown in Woodstock circa 1912 and also with Carlson and Walter Goltz. She continued to paint landscapes while becoming a noted portrait painter.
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Nancy Campbell (b. 1952) View from Shultis Farm 2011 Oil on board 10 x 8 Courtesy of the artist Campbell studied with Staats Fasoldt in 1988 at The Woodstock School of Art, where she later taught Landscape Painting. She was a successful owner of the Half Moon Gallery in Saugerties and, in 2010, became the Executive Director of The Woodstock School of Art. 25
Cecil Chichester (1891-1948) Fall 1912 Oil on board 8 ½ x 10 ½ WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of Bobby and Bill Blitzer Chichester came to Woodstock circa 1906 to study with Birge Harrison. He was considered a leading student of the Arts Students League and is believed to have been an instructor there and later at the Woodstock School of Painting.
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Paula Nelson (b. 1943) The Woods Near Peter’s Field c. 1970 Oil on panel 12 ½ x 12 ½ Courtesy of the artist Nelson came to Woodstock in 1966 and studied landscape painting with Robert Angeloch at the Art Students League Summer School. She continued studying with him at his studio on Speare Road, and at Angeloch’s newly formed Woodstock School of Art. Honing her skills there as a painter and printmaker, Nelson also served for years as Director and President of the Board of Directors, where she continues to serve as Secretary. 27
Staats Fasoldt (b.1947) Sawkill Dam 2010 Watercolor 7 ½ x 11 Courtesy of the artist A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, Fasoldt began teaching watercolor at The Woodstock School of Art in 1986, where he has remained for over twenty-five years. He has instructed legions of artists, including Frances R. Basch, Nancy Campbell, and Kate McGloughlin, and serves as Executive Vice President of the Board of Directors.
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Henry Mattson (1887-1971) Untitled Landscape n.d. Oil on canvas 14 x 18 Morgan Anderson Consulting Mattson came to the Art Students League in Woodstock in 1916 to study with John Carlson, whose impressionist style he quickly renounced, pursuing a more emotional, modernist approach to painting.
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Tor Gudmundsen (b.1949) Zena Glow n.d. Acrylic on board 12 x 16 Courtesy of the artist Gudmunson came to the area in the 1970s to study painting at SUNY New Paltz and, inspired by the beauty of the Catskills, he stayed in the area teaching art at the Saugerties High School and served on the advisory board of The Woodstock School of Art. In 2010, Gudmunson became a painting instructor at The Woodstock School of Art.
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Carl Eric Lindin (1869-1942) Landscape c. 1913 Oil on canvas 15 ½ x 18 ½ WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of Ruth Drake, in memory of Pansy Drake Copeland and Franklin Ross Drake An early Byrdcliffe settler and painter, Lindin was one of five co-founders of the Woodstock Artists Association in 1920. As longstanding Chairman of the Woodstock Artists Association, he often acted as mediator between the divergent factions of painters and went on to influence generations of artists. In 1934, Lindin was a co-founder of The Woodstock Memorial Society, now known as the Artists Cemetery.
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Petra (Emma Mearns) Cabot (1907-2006) Untitled Landscape n.d. Oil on canvas 18 x 22 Morgan Anderson Consulting Petra came to Woodstock in 1921 when she was 14, to study with Charles Rosen and Judson Smith. She bought a cottage in Woodstock with prize money from a design contest and continued to maintain a residence in Woodstock throughout her career. Cabot is known for having designed the Skotch Kooler insulated ice chest.
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Dorothy Varian (1895-1985) Untitled landscape n.d Oil on canvas 15 x 26 Morgan Anderson Consulting Varian likely visited friends in Woodstock in the 1920s, but settled in Bearsville in 1931, enchanted by the bustling art community and a charming piece of property with a brook running at the edge. This painting is the view from the studio in her backyard.
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Allen Cochran (1888-1971) Indian Head, Catskills 1950 Oil on canvas 24 x 36 WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of Michael J. Hughes As a student of Birge Harrsion’s, Cochran adopted a personal impressionist style, which he never abandoned, and became known for his paintings of winter scenes.
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Frances R. Basch (1941-2003) Cooper Lake and Mountains c.1995 Watercolor 6 x 8 Collection of Kate McGloughlin Basch studied with Arnold Blanch at the Art Students League in Woodstock in the late 1960s and with Staats Fasoldt and Kate McGloughlin at The Woodstock School of Art from 1991-2002.
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Harry Gottleib (1877-1993) Autumn in Woodstock c. 1930 Oil on canvas 20 x 24 Morgan Anderson Consulting Gottleib moved to New York in 1918, where he came under the influence of Robert Henri becoming one of the first Social Realist Painters. He was the first resident painter to live at the Maverick. In 1923 Gottleib settled with his wife, Eugenie Gershoy, in Woodstock where he figured prominently in the modernist movement.
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Mary Anna Goetz (b. 1946) Sickler Road 2005 Oil on canvas 16 x 18 The James Cox Gallery at Woodstock Goetz moved to Woodstock in 1990 when she and her husband opened the James Cox Gallery and began to paint the surrounding Catskill Mountains, streams, forests and street scenes of the village. She joined the painting faculty of The Woodstock School of Art in 1991.
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Eugene Speicher (1883-1962) Fall Landscape n.d. Oil on canvas 17 x 20 Morgan Anderson Consulting Speicher came to the Art Students League summer school at Woodstock in 1908 to study with Birge Harrison. He befriended and became painting buddies with George Bellows and Charles Rosen, among others, and figured prominently in the Woodstock School of Painting. Speicher is considered one of America’s foremost portrait painters.
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Ivan Summers (1889–1964) White Oak-November n.d. Oil on board 10 x 12 Morgan Anderson Consulting Summers came to Woodstock to study circa 1913 and in 1920 settled in Woodstock. He became an instructor and eventually director of the Art Students League’s Summer School there, and developed a reputation as an important American impressionist painter and etcher.
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Robert Angeloch (1922-2011) Wet October 1971 Oil on board 8 x 10 Collection of Eric Angeloch In 1948, Angeloch came to the second incarnation of the Art Students League in Woodstock on the GI Bill, where he studied with Arnold Blanch, and later taught landscape painting. He co-founded The Woodstock School of Art in 1968. Angeloch incorporated and moved The Woodstock School of Art to its current site in 1981, and went on to inspire generations of artists. Angeloch became Dudley Summers’ son-in-law in 1956, and Eric Angeloch’s father in 1960. His students included in this exhibition are Eric Angeloch, Paula Nelson, Frances Basch and curator Kate McGloughlin. 40
Frank Swift Chase (1886-1958) Catskills at Woodstock c. 1927 Oil on canvas 22 x 28 Morgan Anderson Consulting Chase followed his brother Edward to the League’s summer school of Landscape Painting at Woodstock in 1909, where he studied under Birge Harrison. After Harrison’s retirement, Chase became Carlson’s assistant along with Walter Goltz, and later became an instructor and director. He became one of the founders of the Woodstock Artists Association in 1920, and also established his first art school on Nantucket, where, known as the dean of Nantucket artists, he was largely responsible for developing that art colony.
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James Wardwell (1871-1923) Snowy Road c. 1917 Oil on canvas, 17 ¼ x 23 ½ Collection of Pamela Wardwell Brother of Alice Wardwell, a patron of the arts and prominent early fundraiser at The Woodstock Artists Association, “Jimmy” Wardwell studied with Paul Cornoyer at the Art Students League in New York and with Birge Harrison at the Art Students League in Woodstock, where he co-founded the “Sunflower Club” with Andrew Dasburg, rebelling against Harrison’s subtle, tonalist use of color. In 1919 Wardwell moved to Goucester, MA.
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Otto Bierhals (1879-1944) Woodstock Landscape 1945 Oil on canvas board 9 x 12 Morgan Anderson Consulting A proficient academic painter who favored impressionist landscapes, Bierhals painted in Woodstock in the 1920’s and was active in the Woodstock Artists Association throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
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Charles Rosen (1878-1950) Speicher’s House n.d. Oil on canvas 16 x 20 Collection of Kit and Gordon Taylor A second-generation member of the New Hope Impressionist School, Rosen grew disillusioned with academic impressionism. He came to Woodstock in 1918 to teach at the Art Students League Summer School, and became a permanent resident in 1920. With Dasburg and others, he co-founded the Woodstock School of Painting in 1922, where he became became best of friends with Eugene Speicher and George Bellows. During the 1930’s he was involved in WPA projects, creating art for public buildings in Saugerties and Kingston and painting murals for post offices in Beacon, Poughkeepsie and Palm Beach, Florida. 44
George Ault (1891- 1948) Late November in the Catskills 1940 Watercolor and gouache 15 x 22 WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of Louise Ault Seeking refuge from the bustle of New York, Ault found his way to Woodstock to paint in 1937 to work in what would become his most fruitful period as a painter. A combination of Precisionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and American Folk Art, his work also demonstrates his predilection for nocturnal scenes.
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Eric Angeloch (b. 1960) Dryads 2012 Alkyd on paper 8 x 8 Courtesy of the artist Born in Woodstock to artist parents Nancy Summers and Robert Angeloch, Eric studied at The Woodstock School of Art and the Art Students League in NY before settling in Woodstock. He became an instructor at The Woodstock School of Art in 1997. He is the grandson of Dudley Summers. 46
Harry Leith Ross (1886-1973) Winter Night n.d. Oil on board 8 ¼ x 10 WAAM, Permanent Collection, gift of the heirs of Zulma Steele Parker Under the influence of Birge Harrison and John F. Carlson, “Tony” Ross studied at the Art Students League summer school in Woodstock, NY in 1913, where he aligned with the conservative faction of artists. From 1914-1935 he divided his time between Woodstock and New Hope, PA, becoming an active member of both art colonies. He became an instructor at the Art Students League at Woodstock in 1919, and in 1956, Ross wrote and published The Landscape Painter’s Manual. Due, in part to his own strong relationships with his instructors, Leith-Ross sought to impart his knowledge, technique and devotion to art to others. He encouraged his students to “be themselves”, advocating an artistic freedom and the development of an individual style. 47
Anton Otto Fischer(1882-1962) Bearsville Moon c. 1956 Oil on canvas 18 x 24 WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of Katrina S. Fischer Having an illustrious and very successful career as an illustrator and marine painter, Fischer settled with his family in Woodstock on Glasco Turnpike in the early 1940s.
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Eva van Rijn (b. 1936) Cooper Lake c. 1995 Oil on canvas 9 x 12 Courtesy of the artist Raised in Woodstock, van Rijn studied with with the Brokenshaws, and with instructors at The Woodstock School of Art, including Frank Alexander, Elizabeth Mowry, Eric Angeloch, Hong Nian Zhang. She served on the Board of Trustees at the WAAM and as Secretary and Vice President of the Board of Directors at The Woodstock School of Art, and is a noted painter of wildlife.
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John Bentley (1880-1951) Winter Landscape n.d. Oil on board 8 x 10 Âź WAAM Permanent Collection Bentley studied with Birge Harrison and John Carlson at the Art Students League summer school in Woodstock and stayed to paint in Woodstock for the next forty years.
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Willard E. Allen (1860-1933) Winter from Studio Window c. 1912 Oil on canvas 12 x 16 The James Cox Gallery at Woodstock Allen arrived in Woodstock in 1913 after meeting Birge Harrison in Toledo, Ohio. Allen also built the Allencrest Hotel next to his home (which is presently the American Legion), where some early classes of the NYA Craft Center, a WPA program, were held. Many artists stayed at Allencrest, including Allen Cochran, with whom Willard became great friends.
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Anita M. Smith (1893-1968) Shady Hills n.d. Oil on canvas 16 x 20 Collection of Julia and Weston Blelock In 1912, Smith arrived in Woodstock for the summer, using money intended for her debutante’s ball gown and returned in 1913 to study with Carlson. Her classmates included Dasburg, Chase, and Speicher. In the late 1950s Smith wrote and published Woodstock History and Hearsay which chronicled, in part, the adventures of her contemporaries and their lives.
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Peter Clapper (b.1957) Rte. 212, Winter 2006 Oil on canvas 11 x 14 Courtesy of the artist Clapper came to Woodstock in 1988 as an artist workspace resident at The Woodstock School of Art and stayed to teach painting beginning in the early 1990s. He teaches at the Art Students League of New York and is married to Karen O’Neil.
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Milton Avery (1893-1965) Pasture and Mountain 1962 Oil on paper 23 x 25 WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of Sally Michel Avery Largely self-taught, in the 1930s Avery visited Woodstock where he befriended the Blanch’s. He spent summers in the late 1940s at Byrdcliffe and in the early 1960s in Lake Hill. Avery is known as a colorist whose work combines Abstraction and Realism and though never associated with a particular movement or school, he is considered a key American modernist.
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Zulma Steele (1881-1979) Landscape, Winter c. 1916 Oil on board 8 Âź x 10 Âź WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Grey First called to Byrdcliffe in 1903 as a furniture designer, Steele later studied painting with Birge Harrison. By 1910, she had evolved a lively Post-Impressionist style and chronicled, by way of painting, the Ashokan Reservoir in all phases of its construction.
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Ernest Fiene (1894-1965) Lasher Farm in Winter 1926 Oil on canvas 24 x 24 D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc. Fiene came with his brother Paul to Woodstock in 1924, perhaps to ride the wave of Modernism that existed at the time, painting precisionist landscapes and enjoying critical recognition early in his career. Fiene moved to New York before the onset of World War II.
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Florence Ballin Cramer (1884-1962) Untitled Landscape Oil on board 20 x 24 Morgan Anderson Consulting Cramer studied at the Art Students League summer school in Woodstock under Harrison beginning in 1906, along with fellow students John Carlson, Grace Mott Johnson, and Andrew Dasburg. She served as secretary for the League in 1906, and met future husband, Konrad Cramer, in Munich. The couple settled in Woodstock in 1911.
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Georgina Klitgaard (1893-1976) The Mountain, Bearsville, NY c. 1946 Oil on canvas 42 x 34 D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc. In 1922, Klitgaard built a home with her husband Kaj in Bearsville, which provided a panoramic view of the mountains and valleys of Woodstock that she painted throughout her career. She became a successful painter, etcher and WPA muralist, and was a good friend of Eugene Speicher, among others. 58
Willard E. Allen—Winter From Studio Window . . . . . . . . 51 Eric Angeloch—Dryads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Robert Angeloch—Wet October . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Milton Avery—Pasture and Mountain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 George Ault—Late November in the Catskills . . . . . . . . . . 45 Frances R. Basch—Cooper Lake and Mountains . . . . . . . . 35 John Bentley—Winter Landscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Mariella Bisson—Waterfall Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Arnold Blanch—Landscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Lucile Blanch—Landscape with Stream. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Bolton Brown—The Hill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Bolton Brown—Woodstock Church. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Petra Cabot—Untitled Landscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Nancy Campbell—View From Shultis Farm. . . . . . . . . . . 25 John F. Carlson—Eventide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 John F. Carlson—Lonely Barns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 John F. Carlson—Wintry Glen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover Margaret Goddard Carlson—Summer Pasture. . . . . . . . . . . 9 Frank Swift Chase—Silent Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Frank Swift Chase—Catskills At Woodstock. . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Cecil Chichester—Fall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Peter Clapper—Rte. 212, Winter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Alan Cochran—Indian Head, Catskills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Florence Ballin Cramer—Untitled Landscape. . . . . . . . . . 57 Andrew Dasburg—Woodstock Landscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Staats Fasoldt—Sawkill Dam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Ernest Fiene—Lasher Farm In Winter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Anton Otto Fischer—Bearsville Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Mary Anna Goetz—Sickler Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Walter “Pop” Goltz—Untitled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Harry Gottleib—Autum In Woodstock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Tor Gudmundsen—Zena Glow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Birge Harrison—Untitled. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Alfred Herbert Hutty—Untitled. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Neil McDowell Ives—Woodstock Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Georgina Klitgaard—The Mountain, Bearsville NY. . . . . . 58 Sidney Laufman—Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Doris Lee—Study For The Farmer’s Wife. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Carl Eric Lindin—Landscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Henry Mattson—Untitled Landscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Kate McGloughlin—Cedar Grove, January. . . . . Back Cover Paula Nelson—The Woods Near Peter’s Field. . . . . . . . . . . 27 Karen O’Neil—Stream Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Charles Rosen—Speicher’s House. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Harry Leith Ross—Winter Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Anita M. Smith—Shady Hills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Judson Smith—Waterfall On Sawkill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Eugene Speicher—Fall Landscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Zulma Steele—Landscape, Winter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Dudley Summers—Big Deep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Ivan Summers—White Oak - Novemeber . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Edna Thurber—Summer Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Edna Thurber—Country Road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Eva van Rijn—Cooper’s Lake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Dorothy Varian—Untitled Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 James Wardwell—Snowy Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
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Edna Thurber, detail
This catalog was made possible by support from: The Walter L. Clark Fund, Carol A. Davis, Mara MacDonald Angeloch, Elizabeth Broad, Eva van Rijn, Nancy and Mike Campbell , David Gubits and Mariella Bisson, Kate McGloughlin and The Woodstock School of Art Alumni Association. Catalog design by Katie Jellinghaus and Eric Angeloch.
Kate McGloughlin Cedar Grove, January 2013 Oil on canvas 6 x 8
Front cover: John Carlson Wintry Glen c. 1922. Oil on canvas 12 x 16 Courtesy of the WAAM Permanent Collection, gift of David and Robert E. Carlson