Month: May 2012

Vanderbilt Landscape and Garden Tours

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Enjoy free grounds tours offered by the National Park Service and their partner, the Frederick W. Vanderbilt Garden Association will offer free grounds tours on Sundays, June 27, July 15, August 19, September 16 and October 21. Interpreter-guides will discuss the history of the gardens, Vanderbilt ownership and the on-going work by the Vanderbilt Garden Association which was formed in 1984 to rehabilitate and maintain the garden plantings.

Participants should meet at 1:00 pm at the Vanderbilt Mansion visitor parking area for tour led by an NPS Ranger. The tour concludes at the Formal Gardens where visitors may join FWVGA volunteers between 1:00 pm and 3:30 pm for an additional 30-minute tour.

Park in the Vanderbilt Mansion visitor parking lot and follow the gravel path on the south side of the mansion. Tours will be cancelled if it rains. Please call 845-229-7770 or 845-229-6432 for status if the weather is questionable.

For additional information call or email Suzanne Gillespie at 845-473-5957, [email protected]

Major Exhibit of American Impressionsist Masters

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A rare grouping of paintings and sketches from American Impressionist masters will highlight the summer season at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York. American Impressionism: Paintings of Light and Life, on view May 26 – September 16, will showcase groundbreaking artists including Childe Hassam,William Merritt Chase, Mary Cassatt, Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, and others. These adaptors of the French Impressionist style revolutionized the American art scene in the late 19th century and ultimately paved the way to a uniquely American style of painting.

American Impressionism: Paintings of Light and Life features 26 paintings, dating from 1881 to 1942, representing nearly every noted American Impressionist from the period. &#8220The paint, the color, and the light in these works separated them from anything that had been done in this country before,” said Museum President and CEO, Dr. Paul S. D’Ambrosio. “They can truly be called some of the first, modern American paintings.&#8221

Impressionism was a painting style imported to America after the 1880s. The major catalyst was Paris-based art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel’s 1886 exhibition of French Impressionist paintings in New York. Comprising nearly 300 paintings by Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, and others, the exhibition marked the beginning of serious interest in Impressionist art on behalf not only of American collectors, but also American painters.

The artists represented in American Impressionism: Paintings of Light and Life were among the first generation of American painters to utilize the techniques of their French counterparts, such as a brighter palette and the use of broken brushwork. While using innovative techniques, they were traditional in their selection of subject matter, seeking out and painting colorful landscapes, beach scenes, urban views, and perspectives of small town life. The artists had a particular interest in the way light could be captured on canvas.

“The Impressionists believed there was a lot more going on with the play of light on various surfaces than people realized, and that’s what they wanted to express in their painting,” D’Ambrosio added.

These works are on loan from several sources, including The Arkell Museum (Canajoharie, NY), The Florence Griswold Museum (Old Lyme, CT), The Parrish Museum (Southampton, NY), and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY). The exhibition will also feature Bridge at Dolceacqua (1884) by Claude Monet (Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA), an excellent example of French Impressionism that inspired and influenced these American artists.

Illustration: Provincetown, 1900, by Childe Hassam (1859-1935), oil on canvas. Owned by the Arkell Museum Collection, Gift of Bartlett Arkell.

Scything Demonstration at Saratoga National Park

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On Saturday, June 2, 2012, from 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM, Saratoga National Historical Park will offer a demonstration of 18th-century style scything. Imagine trying to maintain your lawn or a field using only a long, sharp blade.  Skilled living history teams will use 18th-century style scythes to clear large areas of field as they gather hay for farm animals. As they work, a park ranger will tell stories about farming and food harvesting in the late 1700s.


In the event of rain, the event will be held on Sunday, June 3, from 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM. For more information about this or other events, call the Visitor Center at 518-664-9821 ext. 1777 or check their website at www.nps.gov/sara.

Illustration: Image from Benjamin Butterworth’s The Growth of Industrial Art depicting reaping grain by hand sickle during the colonial period.

Continental Army Encampment at New Windsor

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Sunday June 3 at 2:00 PM, in celebration of New York State Museum Week, a military drill will be held to honor the soldiers who secured our independence.

Surrounded on all sides now by housing developments and in certain areas completely built over, the Continental Army winter encampment, at New Windsor, in 1782-83, was, during its short existence, the second largest city in New York State.

Soldiers fashioned out of the ancient forest, approximately 600 buildings, arrayed in tidy rows, replicating battlefield formations. Though a mighty gathering, the effects upon the vicinity were fleeting. The army moved on in June 1783, leaving only a wife, abandoned by her ne’er do well husband, with two young children and quartermasters responsible for disposing of the encampment. Surplus army equipment, as well as nearly all of the log structures, were sold at public auction. Following the Revolutionary War, farmers cleared the land- making stonewalls out of the collapsed fieldstone chimneys of the huts. By the mid-19th century, except to the most discerning eye, all traces of the Continental Army had vanished.

Learn about the historical significance of the New Windsor Cantonment and the soldiers encamped there during the final winter of the war. At the time, the 7,000 soldiers at New Windsor, and a few thousand more in the vicinity of West Point, were the only force standing between the people of New York and New England and 12,000 British troops in New York City, just 60 miles away.

New Windsor Cantonment State Historic Site is co-located with the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor on Route 300, 374 Temple Hill Road, in New Windsor, NY, just three miles south of the intersection of I-87 and I-84. For more information please call (845) 561-1765 ext. 22.

This Weeks Top New York History News

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Each Friday morning New York History compiles for our readers the previous week’s top stories about New York’s state and local history. You can find all our weekly news round-ups here.

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This Weeks New York History Web Highlights

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Each Friday afternoon New York History compiles for our readers the previous week’s top weblinks about New York’s state and local history. You can find all our weekly round-ups here.

Subscribe! More than 2,800 people get New York History each day via E-Mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.

Adirondack Museum Reopens Friday:New Audio Tour Features Locals, Free Residents Days

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The Adirondack Museum will launch a new audio tour when museum reopens for its 55th season on Friday, May 25, 2012. Year-round residents of the Adirondack Park are invited to visit free of charge every Sunday, and on all open days in May and October. Proof of residency such as a driver’s license, passport, or voter registration card is required.

This year, visitors will be invited to take a fresh look at the Adirondack Museum using the new audio tour. The voices of real people who live in the Adirondacks today will guide visitors to a deeper understanding of the museum’s exhibitions, it dramatic setting, and what makes the Adirondacks unique.

Adirondackers’ personal stories will be related by many including: Kevin Bacon, actor- John Collins, Blue Mountain Lake Resident- Martha Foley, News Director, NCPR- Allison Warner, boat builder- Dan Moore, logger- Steven Tucker, farmer- John Fadden, Six Nations Indian Museum- Marty Podskoch, author- Phillip Terrie, author and Environmental Historian, and many more. You can preview the tour online.

The audio tour will be offered free of charge to visitors with museum admission. The tour will be available via Acoustiguide Audio portable devices and as a downloadable app for smartphones.

The Adirondack Museum is open 7 days a week, from 10:00 a.m. &#8211 5:00 p.m., through October 14. The museum will close at 3 p.m. on August 10 and September 7 for special event preparations. The museum, accredited by the American Association of Museums, offers 65,000 square feet of exciting exhibitions housed in twenty-two modern and historic buildings.

Visitors can explore how people have lived, worked, traveled, and played in the Adirondacks from the 19th century up to today. The museum is supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. For additional information, visit www.adirondackmuseum.org or call (518) 352-7311.

Beatrix Farrand Gardens Centennial Celebration

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The Beatrix Farrand Garden Association is presenting a Centennial Celebration for the Beatrix Farrand Garden at Bellefield on the property of the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site in Hyde Park.

The Beatrix Farrand Garden Association is a not for profit organization dedicated to showcasing the environmental and design legacy of  America’s first female landscape architect,  Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959). The Association partners with the National Park Service to preserve and maintain the
Beatrix Farrand Garden at Bellefield as an outstanding example of Farrand’s work.


An afternoon garden party will be held on Saturday, June 2, 2012 from 4pm to 7pm at Bellefield at the Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, 4097 Albany Post Road, Hyde Park, NY. Advance purchase of tickets is required. For tickets and more information go to http://www.beatrixfarrandgarden.org
or call 845-229-9115 ext. 2023.

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Utica Landmarks Society Holding Picnic in the Park

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The Landmarks Society of Greater Utica’s second Picnic in the Park will be held Saturday, June 2 from 10 a.m.-8:00 p.m. at the Society’s mansions at 1 and 3 Rutger Park, Utica. Day-long activities include guided tours of the mansions, live musical entertainment, face painting, a classical car show on the lawn, an art exhibit featuring local artists, book signings and sales by area authors, and basket raffles.

A food tent will provide wholesome foods, beverages and home made desserts. All Landmarks members will receive complementary ice cream. A “Vendor Village” will feature many area crafters and creators selling their wares.  There is no admission fee. All proceeds will be designated for the Mansions Restoration Fund.