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A Treasure Near Home

I decided to look in on Vassar, a college I had never seen, and its art museum.  What I found was a beautiful Cesar Pelli building from 1993 housing the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, named of course for the principal donor.  

   Vassar was the first American college to open with a permanent art collection: founder Matthew Vassar’s own group of magnificent Hudson River paintings. Since 1861, when the school opened, the art center has acquired carefully selected examples of major European and American art as well as antiquities and earlier European work.

   Now Vassar is opening (Aug. 14 to Nov. 1) a remarkable show, “Drawn by New York,â€� of drawings and watercolors from the New York Historical Society.  Beginning with rare mid-16th-century watercolors of European birds — precursors of Audubon’s work — the show ends with drawings of the World Trade Center before and after Sept. 11, 2001.

   Although the exhibition includes 81 works selected from a larger society show in 2008, it is a sweeping view of American history from the first known depiction of New York City (1650) to an early view of Niagara Falls, renderings of Native Americans, scenes from the vast American landscape and the Civil War, representations from the Gilded Age of the late 19th century and images of ordinary Americans:  immigrants, street vendors, workers.

   Pieces from important, well known artists such as Audubon, Bierstadt, Caitlin, Cole, Durand, Glackens, Tiffany and Sargent are hung along with pictures by inventor Robert Fulton and the nearly unknown Baroness Hyde de Neuville.     

   The sweep of the show is greater than its size, and the quality of the selections, very high.  And on Sunday, Aug. 16,  from 1 to 5 p.m., the art center is hosting a garden party to celebrate the opening.  Children are especially welcome (this is unusual at museums) to come and make summer garden party hats and paper silhouettes inspired by the show.

   There will be a guided tour of the exhibition at 2 p.m.

    

   The Loeb Art Center at 124  Raymond Ave., Poughkeepsie, NY, is open Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is free.

And so is  the garden party.

For information and hours, call 845-437-5632.

Lakeville Journal

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