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Lazy Days, Hazy Days
Three Centuries of American Summer Retreats at Hirschl & Adler
NEW YORK CITY – Like migratory birds returning to their ancestral nesting sites, American artists have been drawn to the same idyllic summer haunts generation after generation. For over 100 years they have been irresistibly lured by the restorative powers of the same beautiful scenery and peaceful atmosphere that attracts countless vacationers today. Such summer Edens as the Maine coast, Cape Ann, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, the Hamptons and the Hudson Valley, which conjure images of endless summers and offer welcome release from the stresses of workaday life to contemporary urban and suburban dwellers, have also attracted artists for more than a century. Paintings of these idyllic retreats of summer enable all of us to retain the visual memories of the lazy and hazy days of summer long after the season itself has ended.
From September 21 to October 25, Hirschl & Adler Galleries presents “Lazy Days, Hazy Days: Three Centuries of American Summer Retreats,” an exhibition of paintings from the Nineteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries depicting some of the favorite summering locales of the Northeast. From the inland havens of Niagara Falls, the Hudson River Valley, Catskills, Adirondacks and White Mountains, to the coastal retreats of Monhegan Island and the Maine Coast, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, Narragansett Bay, the twin forks of Long Island and the New Jersey Shore, it is hoped that these pictures will provide viewers with some of the same pleasures that summer traditionally offers.
Artists made a conscious effort to keep the summer season alive beyond September’s fading light. Fairfield Porter, for instance, commented that he was forever trying to recapture the summers of his youth on Great Spruce Head Island on Penobscot Bay in Maine, in his paintings of Maine’s glowing light and rocky coastlines. Perhaps the same may be said for Francis Silva’s oil painting of a hushed morning along the New Jersey shore, or Robert Henri’s pastels of the cool shadows of Cathedral Woods on Monhegan Island, or Jane Peterson’s gouache of colorfully dressed day trippers disembarking from a steamer in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard. This tradition continues today with a painting of Monhegan Island by Peter Poskas III, a Nantucket view by John Morra, as well as contemporary views of the Hudson River Valley and the New Jersey Shore.
The gallery is at 21 East 70th Street, and is open Monday through Friday from 9:30 am to 5 pm through September 29, and Tuesday through Saturday beginning October 3. For information, 212/535-8810.
