“Bradley Walker Tomlin: A Retrospective” at the Dorsky Museum includes more than 40 paintings, works on paper and printed materials, charting Tomlin’s development from Art Nouveau illustrations of the 1920s to large-scale Abstract Expressionist paintings of the 1950s. The exhibition explores his formative years in Syracuse, early patronage by Condé Nast and the important role played by the Woodstock art colony. Pictured left is Tomlin’s untitled cover for House and Garden, 1926, watercolor on paper, collection of Arthur A. Anderson, photo by Bob Wagner. Tomlin’s As They Walked Along Together, 1921, ink on paper, is featured on right. It is on loan from the Everson Museum of Art, a gift of Isabelle McConnell.
With a new semester getting underway at SUNY-New Paltz, it’s time for the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art to open the doors to its new fall exhibitions. All four go on public view on Wednesday, August 31, and will remain open through December 11. An opening reception is scheduled for Saturday, September 10 from 5 to 7 p.m.
Most famed among the artists being spotlighted is American painter Bradley Walker Tomlin (1899-1953), a retrospective of whose works has been curated by Daniel Belasco and will be displayed in the Morgan Anderson Gallery. “The gentleman Abstract Expressionist,” in the words of poet John Ashbery, Tomlin was known for his elegance in both painting style and personal comportment. “Bradley Walker Tomlin: A Retrospective” includes more than 40 paintings, works on paper and printed materials, charting Tomlin’s development from Art Nouveau illustrations of the 1920s to large-scale Abstract Expressionist paintings of the 1950s. The exhibition explores his formative years in Syracuse, early patronage by Condé Nast and the important role played by the Woodstock art colony. Tomlin is best-known as a key figure in the New York School and had close friendships with Adolph Gottlieb, Philip Guston and Robert Motherwell.
The Sara Bedrick Gallery will house “In/Animate: Recent Work by Myra Mimlitsch-Gray,” curated by Akiko Busch, surveying the past decade of work by the internationally renowned metalsmith and head of the Metal Program at SUNY-New Paltz, which is widely regarded as the pinnacle of its field in US academia. The exhibition explores a variety of artistic processes using iron, copper, brass, silver and enameled steel. Mimlitsch-Gray’s domestic artifacts suggest a coalescence of body and thing, conveying the mutability of the animate and inanimate and reflecting the intimacy between people and the objects that they use. More than 40 meticulously crafted works contribute to the contemporary conversation about how household objects express ideas about presentation, utility and class.
The legacy of another SUNY-New Paltz faculty member will be examined in the Seminar Room with “All Excess Stripped Away: Donations to the Dorsky Museum by Hugo Munsterberg,” curated by Elizabeth Brotherton. The widely differing cultures and periods that are represented in this group of artworks illustrate the broad approach of the art historian, writer, collector and educator, who began teaching at the college in 1958 and died in 1995. Professor Munsterberg added significantly to SUNY-New Paltz’s holdings of both Asian art and works by 20th-century Hudson Valley artists.
The Howard Greenberg Family Gallery will bring us Part II of last year’s successful exhibition, “On the Street and in the Studio: Photographs Donated by Howard Greenberg,” curated by Daniel Belasco. Drawn from among 1,145 photographs by 101 artists collected by art dealer/Center for Photography at Woodstock co-founder Greenberg and donated to the Dorsky, Part II focuses on portraiture and the personal relationship between photographer and subject. Many of these prints have never before been exhibited.
In the Corridor Gallery will hang a rotating display titled “The Dorsky Collects: Selections from the Permanent Collection,” curated by Wayne Lempka. From ancient Egyptian artifacts to American folk painting to 20th-century color photographs, selections in this ongoing exhibition will periodically change in order to provide the visitor with a better understanding of the breadth and depth of the Museum’s holdings.
The Dorsky Museum is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, and closed on Mondays, Tuesdays, during school holidays and intersessions. Admission is by voluntary donation. For more information, call (845) 257-3844 or visit www.newpaltz.edu/museum.