Profile - The Woodstock Art Colony

Profile - The Woodstock Art Colony

The Town of Woodstock, New York, has an international reputation as a cultural and intellectual center. The history of this unique village is the focus of constant study and debate. Few would dispute that its origin as an art colony began in 1902 when an Englishman named Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, student of John Ruskin and friend of William Morris arrived in the idyllic mountain valley and set about establishing a utopian arts and crafts community known as Byrdcliffe.

Shortly after the first artists and intellectuals arrived, a series of reactions and scenarios began to unfold. The Maverick colony, founded by Hervey White, allowed musicians, writers and artists greater freedom of expression. New York’s Art Students League established its summer school in Woodstock, attracting both students and teachers of renown.

Many societies and groups have formed over the past ten decades, promoting an astonishing array of philosophies, art forms and means of expression. Depending upon what time period you examine and your of focus, you will find one art form or another the more ascendent, the more lively. Theater, opera, poetry, music, literature, painting, sculpture and crafts all vie for prominence in our cultural crucible and seem to ebb and flow in vitality and importance depending on the energy and makeup of the local citizenry.

John F. Carlson, Landscape Painting Class. 1910.

If the lively arts are the warp of Woodstock, the weft is made up of the social and political forces that enjoy unusual tolerance and freedom of expression. Socialism, the peace movement, ecological concerns and numerous philosophical and religious cults have all enjoyed important moments and found haven in Woodstock.

The list of famous names associated with the town would fill a volume. In the distant past Isadora Duncan danced, Helen Hayes debuted, John Burrows lectured, Edward G. Robinson acted, Robert Henri taught, George Bellows painted, John Reed organized, Archipenko sculpted, Kuniyoshi printed, Will and Ariel Durant chronicled. All in Woodstock. A skip to the 1960s and 70s would find the townsfolk intermingling with fellow Woodstockers Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Milton Avery, Janis Joplin, Philip Guston. Today Milton Glaser designs, Robert De Niro dines, Peter Shickle reminds… us all that, as in decades before, people debate if Woodstock is changing for the better of for the worse. All agree that the one constant is change itself

Maverick Festival, Woodstock c.1925

Fifty years before the world watched with amazement at the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Festival "Three Days of Peace and Music"... Woodstock artists, writers and musicians were producing artistic festivals with theatrical extravaganzas and bohemian revelry.

Left to right: Charles Rosen, Lucille Blanch, Carl Rohland, Wilna Hervey, Caroline Rohland, Carl Walters, Emil Ganso & Polly Rosen (seated)

Woodstock Artists Baseball 1948

Front: Herman Cherry
Kneeling: (L to R) Edward Chavez, Dave Huffington, Peter Pike,
Fletcher Martin, Bruce Currie
Standing: Sydney Berkowitz (far left), Haywood Hale Broun (far
right)

Woodstock Library Fair (circa 1960)

Twenty Fifth Anniversary Concert admission ticket

This pale reflection of the "original" was held in Saugerties , New York...twelve miles from Woodstock in 1994.

The 1969 Woodstock Music Festival

Named after, intended for, organized in, but never held at 
Woodstock.  The final site was Bethel, New York.

Photo Credit: ©Elliott Landy  www.landyvision.com

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