News and Events
"The River," a solo exhibition by artist Linda Cross in celebration of the Quadricentennial at the Palmer Gallery, November 5 - December 17, 2009.
POUGHKEEPSIE, NY—The James W. Palmer III Gallery at Vassar College will present a selection of works by Linda Cross in The River, an exhibition in honor of the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial, on view from November 5 through December 17. The opening reception will be held on Thursday, November 5, from 5:00-7:00pm. On Saturday, November 14, at 1:30pm, Cross will speak about her work during an artist talk at the gallery. The reception, talk, and exhibition are free and open to the public. The Palmer Gallery is located in the College Center in Vassar’s historic Main Building.
The River, curated by Teresa Quinn, the executive director of campus activities at Vassar, will showcase Cross’s relief sculptures, which she constructs entirely of paper and acrylic to appear like real rock and flotsam. She based her work on real and observed scenes from the Hudson River as well as an outward reflection of her own appreciation for nature.
“Linda begins by soaking paper, then constructing the forms with paper and acrylic,” said Quinn. “During my visit to her studio in Elizaville, I was amazed to see this process of creation and transformation.”
“My long time tendency is towards an overall abstract format,” noted artist Cross, a resident of the Hudson Valley. “Contrary to the traditions of the Hudson River School, my viewpoint has focused on details rather than panoramic vistas.”
Inspired by the Hudson River’s “luminous light and wooded shorelines,” worthy of remembrance, Cross stated that in her work the “water-washed shores of the riverbank and the rocky creeks that flow into the Hudson are explored, remembered and reconfigured.”
Earlier works by Cross examined the cliffs on Monhegan Island, near the coast of Maine, and New Mexico’s wide expanse of mesas, arroyos. She noted that after moving to the Hudson Valley, her work became more and more reflective of the Valley’s natural environs. Cross’ work has been widely featured in museums across New York State, and in exhibitions from New Mexico to Connecticut and Massachusetts.
An illustrated catalogue will accompany The River,made possible in part by the New York Foundation for the Arts.
About Linda Cross
Linda Cross, a resident of Elizaville, NY, attended The University of New Mexico, Syracuse University, and The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. She began her art career in 1959 as part of a group exhibition for The University of Chicago’s Fifth Annual Festival of the Arts. She has had solo exhibitions across New York, including a showcase at the Durham-Ziff Gallery (1985), Land Marks at A Gathering of the Tribes Gallery (1997), and other exhibitions at the Five Points Gallery in East Chatham (1988, 1992), the Davis and Hall Gallery in Hudson (2000, 2001), and most recently at the John Davis Gallery in Hudson (2005).
Cross’s work Gorge, in the exhibition Sticks and Stones (Collaborative Concepts, Beacon, NY), was singled out in a review in the New York Times on August 24, 2003, as “this exhibit's most substantive work , a brainteaser, . . . [with] a message about how nature is much too often scarred by careless litter and how this message can be created with facsimile.”
Cross has received a variety of awards and accolades, including the George Grosz Memorial Scholarship from the Arts Students League in New York, the First Prize for Work on Paper from the Columbia County Council on the Arts Juried Show, and most recently, in 2007/08, the Artist Fund from the New York Foundation for the Arts.
About the James W. Palmer III Gallery
Situated between the North Atrium and the Retreat cafeteria, the HYPERLINK "http://palmergallery.vassar.edu/"James W. Palmer III Gallery is at the heart of the College Center. Constructed in 1996, the Gallery was named and endowed by the Palmer family in 2000 in memory of their son James, a member of the class of 1990. Serving as an exhibition space for artwork created within and beyond the Vassar community, the gallery displays art of diverse mediums, themes, and origins. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 11:00am to 6:00pm, and Saturday, 12:00 to 6:00pm. It will be closed for the Thanksgiving holiday, November 26 – 28.
Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations or information on accessibility should contact Campus Activities Office at (845) 437-5370. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available. Directions to the Vassar Campus are available online.
Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.
Posted by College Relations Tuesday, October 27, 2009
About the Arts
Powerhouse Theater
The Powerhouse Theater is a collaboration between New York Stage and Film and Vassar College. It is dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development and production of new works for theater and film. During an intense eight-week summer residency on the Vassar campus, up to twenty different projects are publicly presented, typically engaging more than 200 professional artists and theater students. Plays, musicals, and screenplays are presented in a variety of forms: readings, workshops, and fully staged productions. Since the first Powerhouse Theater season in 1985, New York Stage and Film and Vassar have served more than 2,000 artists and over 175,000 audience members through the development and production of artistically exceptional and affordably priced performances.
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Located just inside Vassar's Main Gate, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center houses the college's permanent collection, over 18,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, and glass and ceramic wares, charting the history of art from antiquity to the present. The Permanent Collection Galleries feature 350 works, ranging from the sculpted Head of Viceroy Merymose from His Outer Sarcophagus (Egyptian, c 1375 BCE) in the Antiquities Gallery to Marsden Hartley's oil on canvas Indian Composition (1914-15) in the Twentieth Century Gallery. For information on current and upcoming special exhibitions, self-guided and curriculum-based tours, and group visits, please visit the website. The art center is open to the public, and admission is free.
James W. Palmer Gallery
Located in the College Center in Main Building, the James W. Palmer III '90 Gallery presents eight shows annually, including exhibitions by renowned artists and photographers, studio art faculty and students, and local arts organizations. Recent highlights included Andrea Baldeck’s black-and-white photo exhibit, Touching the Mekong: A Southeast Asian Sojourn, organized by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; the Vassar Haiti Project’s annual exhibition and auction of imported arts and handcrafts; and Design Inside, showcasing the work of Vassar’s College Relations design team. All exhibitions are free and open to the public. For information on upcoming exhibitions, visit the website or call (845) 437-5370.
Music Department
Located in the Belle Skinner Hall of Music, the Martel Recital Hall is wonderfully suited, both acoustically and aesthetically, to music performance. With seating for 500, the Martel is home to the Vassar College Orchestra, Choir, Women's Chorus, Madrigal Singers, and numerous chamber groups and ensembles. The Martel concert schedule routinely includes distinguished guest artists, faculty recitals, senior recitals, and special musical events, such as last year's series of organ recitals celebrating the installation and dedication of the college's superb pipe organ, designed by masterbuilder Paul Fritts. For information on upcoming concerts and events (which are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted), please visit the website.
Dance Department
The Department of Dance sponsors several public performances each year. Among those, the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre (VRDT) has a series of Works in Progress showings in the fall, a winter Modfest performance in conjunction with the The Department of Music, winter galas at the 1869 Bardavon Opera House, and two All Parents Weekend performances in the spring. The department's Master Class program annually invites at least one ballet and one modern expert to campus in addition to two people in other areas of dance. Public performances and lectures are often associated with these renowned visitors. Guest artists in the past have included: Irina Kolpokova, Arthur Mitchell, Helene Alexopoulos, Gregory Hines, Anna Kisselgoff, Donald Byrd, Edward Villella, Ronald K. Brown, Irene Dowd, Allegra Kent, Gelsey Kirkland, Pilobolus w/Adam Battlestein, Suzanne Farrell, Mummenschantz, Eldar Aliev, Deborah Jowitt, Bill T. Jones, Pascal Rioult, Clinton Luckett of ABT, Bill Irwin, and Donald McKayle. Many of the department's dance performances are in the Frances Daly Fergusson Dance Theater, located in Kenyon Hall.
"The River," works by Linda Cross, an exhibition in honor of the celebration of the Hudson Valley Quadricenntenial
Detail: Linda Cross, "Shoreline," 2009, paper and acrylic on panel, 48" x 98" x 3"
Thursday November 5 – Thursday December 17, 2009
Opening Reception Thursday November 5, 5-7pm
This exhibition has been made possible in part by the New York Foundation for the Arts.
James W. Palmer Gallery
At College Center, Vassar College
Poughkeepsie, New York
12604
Press Contact
Emily Darrow
Media Relations Associate
(845) 437-7690
emdarrow@vassar.edu