Press Room

Invitation: RoCA-HSRC Exhibit Opening Today

Ryther Batik Detail

The HSRC and Rockland Center for the Arts Invite You to the

Opening Reception:
The Women of South Mountain Road

When: Today (October 22, 2022), 2-5 pm
Where: Rockland Center for the Arts, 27 South Greenbush Road, West Nyack
Admission: $FREE


The Rockland Center for the Arts (RoCA) is proud to present for its 75th anniversary year The Women of South Mountain Road, an exhibition in partnership with the Historical Society of Rockland County. This exhibition was inspired by Susan Deeks’s lecture on the subject and was curated collectively by Daly Flanagan, Barbara Galazzo, Jonathan O’Hea, and Susan Deeks.

During the first half of the twentieth century, South Mountain Road and its environs were home to many of the top artistic talents in the country, including the playwright Maxwell Anderson; the composer Kurt Weill and his singer and actress wife, Lotte Lenya; and the actor/producer John Houseman. It was also home to many painters, sculptors, ceramicists, and textile and glass artists, some of whom were quite well known in their day and who remain prominent in their artistic fields.

The Women of South Mountain Road spotlights the extraordinary accomplishments of the female artists, many of whom were more than early adopters of Europe’s Modernist vision. They were also game-changing innovators in their crafts. Among the artists and intellectuals featured in the exhibition are Mary Mowbray-Clarke, landscape architect ad founder of the South Mountain Road artists' colony; Martha Ryther Kantor, a painter who was well-known locally and in the New York City art world; Ruth Reeves, a renowned American textile designers in the first half of the twentieth century; Eva Zeisel, a Hungarian-born American industrial designer known for her work with ceramics; Lucille Corcos Levy, celebrated as one of the foremost “modern primitivist” painters in America; and the painter Anne Poor and her mother, the journalist and novelist Bessie Breuer.

Also on view in Gallery One & Two are works by contemporary artists living on South Mountain Road: the sculptor Doris Laughton and textile designer/painter Carolyn Ray.

The Women of South Mountain Road exhibition will run from October 17 through November 23, 2022. It is open Mondays through Saturdays, 11 am-4 pm.
For information on free exhibition-based programs accompanying the exhibition, visit www.rocklandartcenter.org.

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The Women of South Mountain Road exhibition and related programs are made possible thanks to the essential support from Kenneth Jay Linsner in Memory of Dr. Carole Weaver-Linsner, as well as by generous loans from the following individuals and institutions: Suzanne Colletta, Justin Duerr, Cora Ginsburg LLC, Historical Society of Rockland County, Collin McIntyre, Martha & Paul Newman, the Collection of Christine Isabele Oaklaner, Ph.D., Jonathan O’Hea, Anna Poor, Lindsay Pracht, Jean Richards and Yale University.
RoCA’s programs are made possible, in part, with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Funding is also made possible by the County of Rockland.

[Image: Detail from Martha Ryther's "Batik," on loan to RoCA courtesy of Christine Isabele Oaklander, PhD.]


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