7 minute read
My L.I. Home
HOME
is where the rt
Celebrating our collective creative past at the Heckscher Museum of Art
By Kate Nalepinski
Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner. Willem and Elaine de Kooning. William Merritt Chase and William Sidney Mount. George Grosz and Arthur Dove and Helen Torr and ...
Countless legendary artists, along with others whose names we don’t yet know but surely will in time, have called Long Island home, inspired by its lifestyle, its landscapes and its light. Their presence still resonates here, giving residents a sense of how important the creative spirit, and its preservation, is to life on this island. It is a sensibility that spurs new artists today, and one that continues to drive the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington and its curator, Karli Wurzelbacher.
A century after its founding, the Heckscher Museum of Art continues to connect Long Island’s artistic past with its present while also looking to the future under Wurzelbacher’s considered watch. Located in scenic Heckscher Park, a cornerstone of Huntington Village, “it’s one of the first art museums in a nonurban setting,” Wurzelbacher notes. “If you think about the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was only founded 50 years before us in one of the biggest cities in the world.”
Karli Wurzelbacher
CURATOR
The museum opened July 10, 1920; its construction funded by Anna Atkins and August Heckscher, a German immigrant who had a summer home with his family in Wincoma, a small hamlet located northwest of Huntington Bay. Originally filled with 185 works donated by Heckscher, the museum later made space for rotating exhibitions. With assistance from Eva Gatling, who in 1962 was named full-time professional director, the museum was put “on the map,” says Wurzelbacher.
The curator understands better than most its integral place not only among the region’s many museums, but in the literal geography that begins the moment one leaves the island of Manhattan for the one stretching from Queens and Brooklyn all the way to Orient and Montauk.
“I love going to the Museum of Modern Art, I love going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but it’s an all-day experience,” she says. “Here, you can pop in. It’s more intimate, it’s less of an undertaking.”
A resident of Bayside, Wurzelbacher loves how Long Island offers that ease of access. She feels it holds as true for the outdoors, nature and the surrounding waters—the Ross, Ohio native still has moments when she’s amazed by the ocean—as it does the museum, whose location offers a touchpoint that has it “plugged in” to Long Island’s art community, as she says.
As such, it actively highlights works from a range of Long Island natives, residents and frequenters. This is accomplished in part through the Long Island Biennial, a juried exhibition featuring work by contemporary artists exclusively from Suffolk and Nassau County.
“What I just continue to find remarkable is the diversity of art being made here,” Wurzelbacher says. “There are many people who paint beautiful, realistic representations of quintessential Long Island landscapes—but there’s also a lot of other things going on, too.”
Wurzelbacher came to New York and obtained her master’s degree in art history from Hunter College, and worked at Manhattan’s renowned DC Moore Gallery. She’s also previously worked at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and has curated exhibitions at the Columbus Museum of Art, Hunter College Art Galleries and the University of
continued on page 18
Photos courtesy Heckscher Museum of Art Prior page: The Heckscher Museum of Art is located on the Heckscher Park grounds in Huntington, both originally funded by Anna Atkins and August Heckscher. Top photo this page: A 1940 postcard displays the park grounds. Bottom photo: The onetime home of Arthur Dove and Helen Torr is a historic landmark owned by the museum.
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The museum opened July 10, 1920; its construction funded by Anna Atkins and August Heckscher, a German immigrant who had a summer home with his family in Wincoma, a small hamlet located northwest of Huntington Bay. Originally filled with 185 works donated by Heckscher, the museum later made space for rotating exhibitions. With assistance from Eva Gatling, who in 1962 was named full-time professional director, the museum was put “on the map,” says Wurzelbacher.
The curator understands better than most its integral place not only among the region’s many museums, but in the literal geography that begins the moment one leaves the island of Manhattan for the one stretching from Queens and Brooklyn all the way to Orient and Montauk.
“I love going to the Museum of Modern Art, I love going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but it’s an all-day experience,” she says. “Here, you can pop in. It’s more intimate, it’s less of an undertaking.”
A resident of Bayside, Wurzelbacher loves how Long Island offers that ease of access. She feels it holds as true for the outdoors, nature and the surrounding waters—the Ross, Ohio native still has moments when she’s amazed by the ocean—as it does the museum, whose location offers a touchpoint that has it “plugged in” to Long Island’s art community, as she says.
As such, it actively highlights works from a range of Long Island natives, residents and frequenters. This is accomplished in part through the Long Island Biennial, a juried exhibition featuring work by contemporary artists exclusively from Suffolk and Nassau County.
“What I just continue to find remarkable is the diversity of art being made here,” Wurzelbacher says. “There are many people who paint beautiful, realistic representations of quintessential Long Island landscapes—but there’s also a lot of other things going on, too.”
Wurzelbacher came to New York and obtained her master’s degree in art history from Hunter College, and worked at Manhattan’s renowned DC Moore Gallery. She’s also previously worked at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and has curated exhibitions at the Columbus Museum of Art, Hunter College Art Galleries and the University of
continued on page 18
Photos courtesy Heckscher Museum of Art Prior page: The Heckscher Museum of Art is located on the Heckscher Park grounds in Huntington, both originally funded by Anna Atkins and August Heckscher. Top photo this page: A 1940 postcard displays the park grounds. Bottom photo: The onetime home of Arthur Dove and Helen Torr is a historic landmark owned by the museum.
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