Priscilla Belcher, a Canaan resident who was known for her community involvement and willingness to speak out, will be featured in a posthumous exhibition at the ArtWall at the Hunt Library from April 25 through May 15.
An opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on April 25. The show will commemorate her life and work and will include watercolors and etchings. Belcher died in November 2025 at the age of 95.
Christian Allyn, a close friend, said Belcher largely kept her creative work private. “Priscilla was a very private person. She kept her painting and writings to herself and only a few close family members,” he said, noting that she was self-taught.
After Belcher suffered a fall in 2024, Allyn and her neighbor, Gail Sinclair, prepared her home for her return. “During this process is when Gail and I began to uncover the volumes of art that Priscilla did throughout her life,” he said.
Belcher was born in 1930 in the Huntsville section of Canaan, the youngest of 10 children. Her family struggled during the Great Depression. “She could remember the entire family splitting one cabbage for dinner,” Allyn said. Her father died when she was nine.
She graduated from Lee H. Kellogg School, when it was still located at the Hunt Library building, and went on to graduate from Housatonic Valley Regional High School (HVRHS).She married John Belcher, foster son of local landowner Dorothy Haven, and moved in 1952 to a house in South Canaan that Haven gave them, near the South Canaan Meeting house, the “Little Red House.”
Years later, Belcher sold the home to help cover legal expenses for her neighbor, Peter Reilly, who was wrongly accused of killing his mother while a student at HVRHS in the 1970s.
Allyn described Belcher as part of a generation shaped by hardship. “Priscilla was one of the last living examples of the greatest generation,” he said. “Through that struggle, her tenacity and character were formed, which helped shape Canaan and the wider region into what it is today.”
He added that her advocacy ranged from pushing for pollution controls at the Falls Village landfill to calling for reforms in Region One schools. “Her willingness to put her house up to pay for Peter Reilly’s legal expenses, consistent advocacy of pollution controls … and reform to Region One in 2010 led this area into a far better place,” he said.
Belcher worked as a bookkeeper for the Lakeville Journal and Geer Nursing. After 1978, she devoted her time to gardening, documenting local history, refinishing furniture, attending town meetings, supporting people in recovery, and developing her painting and writing.
“She had a very hard life and often upset other people while she was intending to do good,” Allyn said. He recalled a conversation near the end of her life: “She said to me in her last days, ‘You know, I think I went a little too far with what I did in Falls Village,’” referring to her outspokenness. He added that after reflecting, “her entire outlook changed.”
The opening reception will be a celebration of Priscilla Belcher’s life, art, and legacy. All are welcome.
For more information visit www.huntlibrary.org/art-wall
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