Pottery Candlestick produced at Cragsmoor
“Art Colonies of Ulster County,” a major new exhibit that traces the histories of the Elverhoj, Cragsmoor, and Byrdcliffe art colonies, will open at the
Bevier House Museum in Kingston on June 4 and run through October 23.
The arts colonies that were established in Ulster County during the early 20th century Arts and Crafts movement were in some ways a byproduct of the attention that had been brought to the region by the preceding generation of Hudson River School painters like Asher Durand, Frederic Church, and Thomas Cole. Through their work, the Catskills’ reputation as an arts-friendly area of natural beauty began attracting students who in previous times would likely have gone to Europe to study to the Hudson Valley, leading to the founding of several utopian-style arts colonies.
The best-known—and the oldest such colony in America that’s still in operation—is the Byrdcliffe Colony, begun by Ralph Whitehead, his wife, Henry Byrd McCall, Bolton Brown, and Hervey White in 1902. Cragsmoor, pioneered in Wawarsing by E.L. Henry in 1882, was Ulster County’s earliest arts colony and was the site of the Kinaloha Art School from 1936 to 1950. The lesser known Elverhoj (Danish for “hill of the fairies”; pronounced “El-ver-hoy”), in the hamlet of Milton, was founded in 1912 by Danish American artists and craftsmen led by Anders Andersen. Sponsored by the Ulster County Historical Society and taking up the entire first floor of the Bevier House Museum, “Art Colonies of Ulster County” will feature artworks and artifacts connected to each of the arts colonies.
“Art Colonies of Ulster County” will be on view at the Bevier House Museum in Kingston (near Stone Ridge) June 4 through October 23 (an opening reception will be held on June 10). The museum is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 5pm. Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for seniors and students.