The Heckscher Museum of Art July August September 2024 by The Heckscher Museum of Art

A Second Century of Art and Inspiration

July August September 2024

BANK OF AMERICA GRANT SUPPORTS MISSION TO MAKE ART ACCESSIBLE TO ALL

The Museum offers free admission courtesy of Bank of America

A grant from Bank of America allows The Heckscher Museum of Art to offer free admission into 2025, and welcome more visitors and families to enjoy art and community.

“We are grateful to Bank of America for its generosity and partnership,” said Heather Arnet, Executive Director & CEO. “Founders Anna and August Heckscher envisioned a thriving ‘museum for all’. This grant will allow the Museum to continue that important mission and ensure that cost will not be a barrier for any individual or family to view the Museum’s fine art collection and exhibitions.”

The Heckscher Museum was founded in 1920 as a space for the people of Huntington, especially the children, to enjoy free access to world-class art. Throughout the last century, The Heckscher Museum has worked to maintain that legacy through key partnerships and fundraising efforts. These efforts have helped sustain the Museum’s quality arts education and outreach programs, caretaking of the permanent collection, and the organization and presentation of renowned art exhibitions.

A supporter of Long Island’s vibrant arts scene and cultural institutions, Bank of America is dedicated to fostering greater cultural understanding through the arts. Providing and expanding access to museums and the arts is critical for enriching local communities and driving social progress. The $25,000 grant will ensure that more visitors will be able to experience The Heckscher Museum’s exhibitions free of charge.

“Making Long Island’s flourishing arts community and cultural institutions accessible to locals and visitors alike has the power to

create long-lasting, positive change in our communities,” said Marc Perez, President, Bank of America Long Island. “In partnership with The Heckscher Museum of Art, we look forward to ensuring that access to the museum’s dynamic exhibitions and permanent collection is free to the public.”

In his dedication speech, Mr. Heckscher stated that Huntington was to be “one of the few places in the United States outside of the large cities [that] possess galleries of such extent and importance.”

Free Museum admission gives full access to art for the entire community.

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Dear Friends,

I hope you are enjoying summer, spending time in beautiful Heckscher Park, and visiting the fascinating exhibitions now in the galleries. We look forward to seeing you when the Long Island Biennial juried exhibition, featuring fine art by contemporary artists, opens later this year.

A new grant from Bank of America supports the Museum’s ability to continue the legacy of founders August and Anna Heckscher by removing cost as a barrier to experiencing world class art. This new “Museums for All” grant initiative aims to increase museum attendance, access, and opportunity, underwriting free admission to the Museum, while continuing to encourage community donations to support the mission of the Museum.

Looking ahead, I am delighted to report meaningful recognition and support for a monumental exhibition planned for 2025 on the work of sculptor Emma Stebbins. The Museum has received prestigious grant awards toward the exhibition from The Wyeth Foundation for American Art, The Henry Luce Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). We are grateful to Robin T. Hadley (Chair Emerita) and Richard T. Cunniff, Jr. (Board Secretary), whose leadership commitments launched the campaign for this historic exhibition, as well as Andrea B. and Peter D. Klein, and Priscilla and Robert Hughes for their early and significant sponsorship.

Earlier this year, we shared that The Heckscher Museum of Art acquired and conserved two sculptures by Stebbins – Lotus Eater (1863) and Sandalphon (1866). The new works in the collection join Stebbins’s Commerce and Industry (1859), both of which have been part of the Museum’s collection since its founding in 1920. The Museum is now steward of the largest public collection of Stebbins’s work, making it the ideal institution to organize the first solo museum exhibition and scholarly publication of this important American Artist.

We are grateful for the generosity and support of these prominent national foundations, which attest to the magnitude of this exhibition, for museum visitors and art historians worldwide. It is also a testament to the Museum’s curatorial team and staff who recognized the need to bring this artist’s life and art to the forefront and are working diligently to bring that vision to fruition.

Despite maintaining a robust transatlantic career and becoming the first female artist to garner a public art commission in New York City, Emma Stebbins has yet to receive proper recognition for her important role in the history of American art. Her oeuvre

HECKSCHER CAFÉ OPENS THIS SUMMER

The Heckscher Museum of Art has long been a cornerstone of cultural life in the community. Thanks to a JumpStart grant from Suffolk County, the first phase of a new Heckscher Café project will begin this summer featuring inviting terrace seating, and food vendors on select summer Fridays. The introduction of the Outdoor Café is a natural extension of the Museum’s mission to foster community connections and to enrich lives through art, offering visitors a welcoming space to relax, connect, and enjoy a vibrant outdoor experience.

The Outdoor Café will feature a rotating selection of local food trucks, showcasing a diverse range of cuisines presented by local small business owners with a focus on Black and Indigenous chefs/owners of color.

“Thanks to the support of Former County Executive Steve Bellone, Suffolk County Legislator Stephanie Bontempi, and Huntington Supervisor Ed Smythe, we are thrilled to provide this enhanced new experience for Museum visitors,” said Heather Arnet, Executive Director and CEO. “Through this project, we are excited to offer enhanced accessible indoor and outdoor communal seating for visitors to enjoy, while supporting local small food truck businesses and furthering community.”

encompasses marble sculptures of literary and biblical subjects, portrait busts, contemporary laborers, and monumental public works. Her iconic Bethesda Fountain (1873) is the centerpiece of Manhattan’s Central Park. Though Stebbins was recognized in her time for her neoclassical sculpture and authorship of a biography of her beloved life partner, actor Charlotte Cushman, her legacy has been forgotten and buried for too long. We hope to change that with a show and exhibition catalogue which will explore all facets of her work and life.

We’ll keep you updated throughout the course of the planning and execution of this exciting exhibition.

With gratitude,

Cover image: George Grosz, Uprooted (The Painter of the Hole), 1948, watercolor and selectively applied glaze on off-white modern laid paper. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Association Fund.

Pay Matthis Karstens, Co-curator of George Grosz: The Stick Men, with CEO Heather Arnet in front of George Grosz’s Eclipse of the Sun, 1926.

GEORGE GROSZ: THE STICK MEN

THROUGH SEPTEMBER 1

A hardcover exhibition catalog in both German and English is available. It traces the origins of The Stick Men, Grosz’s artistic and political legacy, and the artist’s connection to Long Island. In an essay excerpted here, Chief Curator Karli Wurzelbacher explores Grosz’s time in Huntington.

“I have grown roots here.”

— GEORGE GROSZ

GROSZ IN HUNTINGTON

As seen throughout the Stick Men artworks, Grosz used the metaphor of being uprooted to express a lack of connection to place, to civilized norms, to the past, to meaning. Later in life, however, he spoke of putting down roots. Following Grosz’s death, the local paper eulogized, “On Long Island, we knew him differently…Around him, a new art life grew in Huntington. And his friends remember how he would show them the soles of his shoes: “see the little roots? I have grown roots here.” In Huntington, Grosz’s social circle and audience for his work, including the Stick Men series, was a network that consisted of European immigrants, students he taught in his home studio, and artists he showed with at Vera Lazuk’s Country Life Art Centre Gallery in Fort Salonga, a hamlet within the town. Members of this group also founded the Huntington Township Art League and led The Heckscher Museum of Art, ensuring Grosz’s enduring legacy on Long Island.

THE RAINS ARE CHANGING FAST: NEW ACQUISITIONS IN CONTEXT

Through September 1

Sponsored by the Members of The Heckscher Museum’s Collections Stewardship Committee

The Rains are Changing Fast highlights artwork recently acquired alongside Museum collection pieces. Two contemporary artists, with newly acquired artwork on view discuss their work and process.

Claire Watson:

For most of the last decade or so, my work has been based on leather clothing that I've salvaged from thrift stores or that's been passed down to me by friends. And I'm wrestling with the physical nature of the leather, but also all of its histories. I hope visitors

will see Emboss and XY as contributing to a dialogue with other artists who've worked with fiber and textile, other makers, past and present. But also, that they pose questions for viewers. I hope it's understood that the works in the series developed organically out of my own earlier projects with found objects and that all these things are connected.

Deborah Buck:

I think the history of your hand and your eye and your mind, and the decisions that you make in the course of making a painting, are very important. I'm very interested in the process. I want to show the paint for what the paint can do and what the paint can do when I manipulate it. But also, when I let it

go, when I let it drip, when I let it run, when I let it pull up and under, from beneath and go, "Hey, don't forget about me." Then, I incorporate that, and I celebrate that.

LONG ISLAND BIENNIAL Opens September 14

The Heckscher Museum of Art’s Long Island Biennial is a juried exhibition featuring work by contemporary artists from Suffolk and Nassau Counties. It offers contemporary Long Island artists an opportunity to show their work to a broad public. In 2024, the Long Island Biennial received 313 artist applications with a total of 762 works submitted.

This year’s jurors are Ian Alteveer, Beal Family Chair of the Department of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Patricia Cronin, sculptor, Artistic Director of the LGBTQ+ VR Museum and Distinguished Professor of Art, Brooklyn College; and Grace Hong, Assistant Director, Galerie Lelong & Co. The 2024 Long Island Biennial exhibition is the 8th edition of the juried show and is a themed competition. Long Island artists were invited to submit work that engages with contemporary social, cultural, or political issues.

“I’m really excited about having a theme this year. I want to see the amazing artwork that is being made right here,” explains Meredith A. Brown, Consulting Curator of Contemporary Art and Curator of this exhibition “Art has a way of tackling difficult or complex issues in a way that is thoughtprovoking and sometimes provocative. Artists are very thoughtful about how they make art with the understanding that it will circulate in the world and may take on different meanings in the process. I am looking forward to works that articulate a point of view, either sociopolitical or aesthetic, and makes me think and not look away.”

HONORING

Robert C. Hughes, Town of Huntington Historian Kasmira Mohanty, Art Teacher, Artist, and Writer Han Qin, Artist

SAVE THE DATE

Saturday, October 19, 2024 Noon to 4:00 pm Water’s Edge, Centerport Waterside Cocktails & Luncheon

The Board of Trustees of The Heckscher Museum and the Co-Chairs of the 2024 Celebrate Achievement Benefit are proud to recognize three remarkable individuals who exemplify the spirit of education, inspiration, philanthropy, and community outreach central to the Museum’s mission.

Robert C. Hughes is the Huntington Town Historian, an author, and a dedicated leader in the community. As Town Historian, Robert serves as secretary to the Huntington Historic Preservation Commission and the African American Historic Designation Council. He works with all Town heritage organizations to assist them in achieving their missions of preserving and sharing Huntington’s history. Robert is President of the Huntington Rural Cemetery Association,

Inc. and serves on the boards of the Van Wyck-Lefferts Tide Mill Sanctuary, Cold Spring Harbor Library, and Friends of the Coltrane Home in Dix Hills. Along with his wife, Priscilla, Robert is a longstanding member of the Museum and generous sponsor of various Museum exhibitions and initiatives, including the newest exhibition, George Grosz: The Stick Men.

Kasmira Mohanty is an educator, writer, and artist who has spent the last three decades pushing the boundaries between traditional and digital art making. She has taught digital arts at Huntington High School since 2001 and is an Executive Board Member of the Huntington Arts Council and Suffolk County Art Leaders Association. Kasmira received national attention when she became a writer and contributing editor for SchoolArts Magazine. Among other exhibitions, her artwork has been exhibited in the Long Island Biennial twice, receiving a Merit Award in 2022. Her dedication to the arts and education has led to a productive and cherished twenty-four-year relationship with the Museum. Kasmira’s students have followed in her footsteps, receiving numerous accolades through the Long Island’s Best program, illustrating her lasting impact on budding young artists.

Han Qin is a visual artist, curator, and researcher committed to exploring and challenging biases in public art through digital installations, print media, and curation, all approached with a journalistic sensibility. She earned her B.F.A. and M.F.A. in Printmaking from the esteemed China Academy of Art, and an M.F.A. in Digital Arts from Pratt Institute. Currently, Han shares her expertise as a Chancellor Award Adjunct Professor in the Art Department at Stony Brook University. Among her many collaborations with the Museum, Han was an integral leader in presenting the dynamic multimedia art, light, and sound display, Illuminations 2023: The Many Faces of Home, which included her animated film projection titled HOME. Han is a Long Island Biennial exhibiting artist, and the Museum is proud to have her artwork as part of the permanent collection.

Proceeds support The Heckscher Museum of Art’s exhibitions and programs. The Benefit is inspired by the upcoming exhibition Berenice Abbott.

LEAD CO-CHAIRS

Richard Cunniff, Jr.

Elizabeth Halpern

COMMITTEE CO-CHAIRS

Jessica Brassler

Poranee Chen

Erin Cunningham

Caroline DeDora

Susie Futter

Katie Morin

Jill Seiman-Mayer

Susan Van Scoy

Phyllis Woods

Jen Zuklie

For sponsorship opportunities, please visit Heckscher.org/benefits/2024, call 631-380-3229, or contact Caitlynn Schare at Schare@Heckscher.org.

Programs

FOR MEMBERS

MEMBERS PREVIEW HOUR

DOVE/TORR COTTAGE OPEN HOUSE

SATURDAY JULY 27 (RAIN DATE JULY 28)

11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Current Museum members at the Fellow Level and above are invited for a private tour with Executive Director & CEO Heather Arnet at the Dove/Torr Cottage before general open house hours. Take in beautiful views of Titus Mill Pond while enjoying coffee and light refreshments.

Please note: You must be a current Member at the Fellow Level or above to register for this event. Advance registration is required. Contact Caitlynn Schare at Schare@Heckscher.org to check your membership status or register.

LONG ISLAND BIENNIAL

EXCLUSIVE RECEPTION

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

5 - 7:30 pm

Exhibiting artists, their friends and family, Museum Members, and Donors are invited to see the Long Island Biennial 2024 during exclusive visiting hours not open to the general public. Advance reservations are required. Contact Caitlynn Schare at Schare@Heckscher.org with questions or to receive the link to register.

ART FAIR ACCESS FOR MEMBERS

The Museum is pleased to offer members access to complimentary tickets to a variety of art fairs throughout the year. Upcoming fairs include:

The Hamptons Fine Art Fair* July 11-14

Art on Paper September 5 - 8

The Armory Show* September 5 - 8 Contact Schare@Heckscher.org to learn more.

*Priority registration for these fairs is available to members at the Patron level and above.

ARTHUR DOVE & HELEN TORR COTTAGE

OPEN HOUSE

SATURDAY, JULY 27 (Rain Date July 28)

1 - 4 pm

Free

Located at 30 Centershore Road, Centerport

Enjoy exclusive access to the historic home of American modernist artists Helen Torr and Arthur Dove during this open house event. The Heckscher Museum of Art is proud to preserve and steward this historic property and open the interior of the property to the public during this special event. Learn more about artists from Curatorial staff and docent volunteers. Meet artist Susan Buroker, whose large-scale sculpture is currently on view and was inspired by the work of Torr. Observe artist Doug Reina as he paints en plein air and sketch along. And don’t forget to also explore the Dove/ Torr Cottage Soundwalk using your phone in the Museum’s digital guide in the Bloomberg Connects app!

HANDS-ON WORKSHOP WITH PROTÉGÉ ART STUDIO

TUESDAY, JULY 30

10 am - 12 pm

$10 Members, $15 Non-Members Registration recommended. Ages 18+. All levels welcome - no experience necessary. Bring your own sketchbook and pencil (and/ or iPad if preferred).

Enjoy a morning of exploring and drawing in the galleries with Protégé Art Studio! Begin with a guided tour of the current exhibition The Rains are Changing Fast Then join artist and owner of Protégé Art Studio, Robyn Cooper, to create altered mixed media landscapes. Students will manipulate printed images of historic works and draw and collage their way to creating new, contemporary creations. Cooper established her Protégé studio in 2022 with the motto “art for all.”

YOGA IN THE GALLERIES:

ART & MOVEMENT WITH JESSE CURRAN

SATURDAY, AUGUST 17

10:30 - 11:30 am

$15 Members; $25 Non-Members Space is limited. Registration recommended. Register at heckscher.org/yoga

Enjoy the uplifting experience of hatha yoga in one of Huntington's most inspiring architectural spaces. This all-levels class provides an occasion to align the breath and body with some of the shapes and rhythms that are animated by the work currently on view in the Museum. Please bring your own mat and a blanket, as well as any other yoga props that you use in your practice. Jesse Curran, PhD/EYRT, is a certified experienced yoga instructor. As a poet and scholar, Jesse's yoga classes integrate ideas and expressions from other artistic practices

DRAW OUT! COMMUNITY ARTS FESTIVAL

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21

Rain Date: Saturday, September 28 12 - 5 pm FREE

Join us for a day of creativity in the Museum and Heckscher Park! Enjoy a broad array of activities designed for all ages, including watercolor painting, collage, and more. Enjoy live music on the terrace throughout the day and Long Island Biennial artist demonstrations. Docents will be in the galleries to bring the artwork to life! The first 100 attendees will receive free art supplies.

In collaboration with: Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum, Protégé Art Studio, TOH Huntington Asian American Task Force, Huntington Fine Arts, One River School, and more.

THE HECKSCHER MUSEUM OF ART CREATES OPPORTUNITIES FOR EVERYONE TO EXPERIENCE ART THAT BROADENS UNDERSTANDING OF THE PAST, FOSTERS COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS TO THE PRESENT, AND CREATES DIVERSE POSSIBILITIES FOR THE FUTURE.

VISIT HECKSCHER.ORG FOR EXHIBITION AND PROGRAM INFORMATION

HECKSCHER MUSEUM HOURS

Thursday through Sunday 12 to 5 pm (Closed Monday through Wednesday)

DOCENTS IN THE GALLERIES

Docent volunteers are available in the Museum to answer visitor questions on select days. Please see Heckscher.org/calendar for details.

DIRECTIONS

LIE or Northern State Parkway to Route 110 North. Turn right onto Route 25A East, Main Street, in Huntington. Left onto Prime Avenue.

PRIVATE GROUP TOURS

Tours for groups now available. For scheduling and fees, register at Heckscher.org/visit/groups-tours/

BOOK YOUR VISIT IN ADVANCE WALK-INS WELCOME

Go to Heckscher.org/planyourvisit

GENEROUS SUPPORT PROVIDED BY THE TOWN OF HUNTINGTON.

Risaburo Kimura, New York, 1973, serigraph on paper. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Samuel S. Mandel. Now on view in The Rains are Changing Fast: Recent Acquisitions in Context.