Gathered Treasures: Three Decades of Collecting Woodstock's Art Heritage at the Woodstock Artists Association
By RAYMOND J. STEINER
ART TIMES
Mar, 2004
 "The Red House" by Florence Ballin Cramer |
IT IS ALWAYS a rare treat when an institution shares with the public a look into their collected archives — and "Gathered Treasures" is no exception to that observation. The Woodstock Artists Association has long been the hub of one of America’s longest-running art colonies, its members over the years an important part of the history of American art. Since its inaugural exhibition in 1921, the walls of the "WAA" — as it has long been known — have been graced with the work of one of our country’s true "American" schools — the landscape painters that flocked to the little town of Woodstock after the Art Students League of New York opened its summer sessions in 1906 to what Birge Harrison once called "the best landscape school in the world." The Woodstock painters, like those of New York City and its "Ashcan School," had been instrumental in breaking away from European traditions to establish an authentic American "voice." The landscape painters that had preceded them to the region, the so-called "Hudson River School," had in fact still been painting in the "grand manner" learned in the great academies of France and Germany, and though they sought motifs throughout the Catskills, had rendered them as if still at the schools of Paris, Munich, or Düsseldorf. The WAA, then, was in a unique position to not only foster but to have as its membership a truly significant gathering of artists — a situation that, thankfully, their Board of Trustees had enough foresight to capitalize upon.Ever since Carl Eric Lindin, one of the League’s teachers and a founding member of the WAA, had proposed the idea, the building of an archival collection had been one of their primary objectives and, over the years, they have amassed one of the finest collections of American art that might be found. "Gathered Treasures," a selection of thirty-seven paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from thirty-five separate Woodstock artists, offers a taste of that history and of that collection.
 "Still Life With Peonies" by Carl Olaf Eric Linden |
Ranging approximately from the years 1910 through 1986 (some pieces are not dated), the exhibit shows the wide range of techniques and styles that has characterized the WAA membership from its earliest days. From the work of such early realists as James Baare Turnbull and Florence Ballin Cramer, to the large-scale wooden sculptures of Harvey Fite and the exquisite abstract marbles of Lily Ente, and on to the enigmatic doodlings of Philip Guston, the exhibit offers a visual overview — but only a hint — of what the WAA has in its stores. Continually being supplemented by additions of new work from donors and members, the Permanent Collection of the WAA has long been a treasure trove for present-day institutional exhibitors seeking to eke out their rotating shows, and there is hardly a time when some of the collection is not out on loan somewhere across the U.S. "Gathered Treasures" is well worth a look. Further information about this show or the Permanent Collection may be obtained by contacting Josephine Bloodgood, curator of the exhibit, or Linda Freany, archivist, at the Association offices.
*"Gathered Treasures: Three Decades of Collecting Woodstock’s Art Heritage" (Feb 14—May 3): Woodstock Artists Association, Phoebe & Belmont Towbin Wing, 28 Tinker St., Woodstock, NY (845) 679-2940.
