HSW Receives Grants
From
NYSCA/Greater Hudson Heritage Foundation &
Wood Dock Foundation
The Historical Society of Woodstock has received two conservation grants, a 2024 NYSCA/Greater Hudson Heritage Foundation Conservation Treatment Grant Program award of $6,200 for restoration of three paintings and a Wood Dock Foundation grant for $6,000 for the retention of art conservators to advise the HSW on its new building.
The NYSCA/Greater Hudson Heritage Foundation is for the conservation of the paintings Autumn (1919) by Carl Eric Lindin, Shagbarks (c. 1920-1925) by Allen Dean Cochran, and Pine Grove Pleasure Park (1938) by Dorothy Varian. Conservation will be undertaken by Nadia Ghannam Fine Art Conservation who also undertook the care of paintings by Arnold Blanch and Edmund Rolfe that were supported in 2021 by a grant from the Greater Hudson Heritage Foundation Conservation Treatment Grant Program. A second grant was awarded to the Historical Society of Woodstock by the organization in 2022 for the conservation of a watercolor still life by William Arlt. The funds awarded to the Historical Society of Woodstock is from a grant administered by the re-granting agency, the Greater Hudson Heritage Foundation.
The Wood Dock Foundation grant is for funds to retain Cold Spring, New York-based A.M. Art Conservation. This organization will advise the HSW on state-of-the-art finishing materials for the interior of its new archival building. In addition, they will suggest the best art storage furniture and recommend modifications to accommodate the Historical Society’s collection. A. M. Art Conservation’s report will also be used to obtain additional funding from individuals and institutions to pay for art storage furniture.
A.M. Art Conservation helps its clients preserve art and cultural property through consulting, hands-on work, and education. Past clients include the American Museum of Natural History, DIA: Beacon, and Tiffany & Co. Archives.
Carl Eric Lindin was born in Fellingsboro, Sweden, and emigrated to America in 1887. He came to Woodstock in 1902 and became one of the town’s leading landscape painters and among its most prominent citizens. He was a founder of the Woodstock Artists Association (and president of the closely associated Artists Realty Corporation). After Birge Harrison’s death in 1929, he was regarded as the dean of the art colony.
Allen Dean Cochran came to Woodstock in the early years of the 20th century to study in Harrison’s painting class at the Art Students League’s Woodstock School of Landscape Painting. Under the influence of Harrison and John F. Carlson a major school of landscape painting developed in Woodstock, which counted Cochran among its exemplars.
Dorothy Varian first came to Woodstock in around 1917, when she studied at the Woodstock School of Landscape Painting. She returned in 1931, when she purchased an old farmhouse in Bearsville. Over the course of her career, Varian worked primarily as a landscape painter in oil and watercolor. Upon her death in 1985, she left a large bequest to the Woodstock Artists Association which was specially earmarked to establish a building fund for a permanent gallery of Woodstock art. Pine Grove Pleasure Park pictures a popular spot in the Saugerties hamlet of Centerville, located in the vicinity of the present-day Pine Grove Road. People came there to picnic and enjoy games. The park had a merry-go-round, children’s playground, music and dance pavilion, as well as a bathing beach.
The NYSCA/GHNN Conservation Grant Treatment Program is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation has provided additional dedicated support for conservation treatment projects on Long Island and New York City.
This year the Greater Hudson Heritage Network (GHHN) and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) are awarding $178,873 in conservation treatment grants to 30 organizations in 23 New York counties. Over the past year, the NYSCA/GHHN Conservation Treatment Grants guidelines were revised to make funding more accessible for projects that reflect the spectrum of communities and cultures across New York State.