Friday, February 24, 2017
Vol. 77, No. 8
LOVE IS IN THE AIR
Long Island artist honored by Baseball Hall of Fame BY GARY SIMEONE
Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino (back row right) recently attended the Town of Oyster Bay’s Annual Senior Valentine’s Day Luncheon at the Woodbury Country Club. The Valentine’s Day Luncheon invited senior residents to celebrate the Valentine’s Day season with a festive luncheon with several Town of Oyster Bay Officials in attendance. Among those on hand for the event were Commissioner of the Department of Community and Youth Services Maureen Fitzgerald (left) and senior residents Anna & Frank Radics of Massapequa.
Casino Bus Trip
The Catholic Daughters of the Americas of Hicksville will be hosting a bus trip to Sands Casino in Bethlehelm, PA on March 28th. Cost is $43 per person, which includes the driver’s tip Give back: $30 slot play and $5 food voucher
Please arrive at 8:30 am Return approx. 8:30 pm Reservations: call Barbara at (516) 935-5576. Please make checks payable to CDA. Parking information given with your reservation. **The first to pay is the first on the bus, etc. **
$1
Mort Kuntsler, a famous artist and resident of Oyster Bay, will have his latest work unveiled and put on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame and the White House. The painting which depicts soldiers during the Civil War playing baseball on the White House South Lawn will also be on display this month in Huntington at the Heckscher Museum of Art and on the February cover of the Saturday Evening Post. Kuntsler said he committed hours of painstaking research in finding historically correct images to make sure his painting was an accurate description of the event. “It was like detective work,” said Kuntsler. “All my life I’ve been doing this sort of thing and the authenticity is part of the fun of it.” Dr. Michael Schantz, Executive Director of Heckscher Museum of Art, said that he was elated to have the famous artist’s work on display at the Museum. “We are absolutely thrilled to have this great talent and well respected member of the community’s paintings featured at the Museum,” said Schantz. “He lives close by to us and with his recent work being honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame and the White House, we thought this would be the appropriate time to do so.” He said that he was grateful for Mort and his wife Deborah, for letting him come to his home to extract the paintings for public view. This will be the first time that Kuntsler’s work will be on display at the Museum. The exhibition at the Museum, which runs from December 10, 2016 - March 5, 2017, is entitled Norman
Rockwell and Friends: American Illustrations from the Mort Künstler Collection. Some of the artists featured include Winslow Homer, Maxfield Parrish, Dean Cornwell, Howard Pyle and many others. Kuntsler’s iconic picture of George Washington crossing the Delaware River is prominently featured in the exhibit and his new book, which features his artwork, ‘The New Nation: The Story of the Birth of out Country’ will act as a catalog for show. The 85 year old Kuntsler is considered to be one of the premier historical artists in the country and his career spans over 65 years. He said that his parents encouraged him to be an artist because he showed from an early age an aptitude to paint complex, action oriented pictures. After graduating from art school he began working on illustrations in the 1950’s for various magazines including National Geographic and Fish & Game Magazine. His artwork started to gain recognition and many of his pieces were eventually featured in movies such as the Poseidon Adventure and the Hindenburg. “It was a great experience working in the movies and from there I ended up doing one of my first gallery shows,” said Kuntsler. He did his first gallery show at Hammer Galleries in New York City in 1977 with his artwork being mostly Western subject matter which was popular at the time. At that time he started to become well known as an important painter of historic subjects. Since his first show in 1977 he has ended up doing thirteen shows at Hammer Galleries with 2006 being his latest exhibition. See page 8
Great musicians recognized in Bethpage PAGE 15 “Teacher of the Month” named in Hicksville PAGE 6