Olmsted & the Hudson River School: Art in Landscape

Information

Talk on Sunday, May 18, 1 pm at The Woodland; exhibit preview fundraiser on Friday, May 16

If you’ve ever wandered through Maplewood Memorial Park and felt as though you were walking through a living painting, that is not by chance. Many landscape architects of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including those who designed Memorial Park, were inspired by Hudson River School artists. Chief among those architects was Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed New York’s Central Park.

Explore the fascinating connection between landscape design and art with Sara Cedar Miller, former Central Park historian, at Central Park and the Hudson River School, a talk sponsored by Durand-Hedden House & Garden at The Woodland Parlor on Sunday, May 18, from 1 pm to 2:30 pm. Visitors are then invited to Durand-Hedden House to view a new exhibit: Olmsted and the Hudson River School: Art in Landscape. Visitors will also enjoy works by local artists in the Carriage House, the products of a recent Painters in the Park event sponsored by the Maplewood Memorial Park Conservancy, from 1 pm to 4 pm. Refreshments will be served. Music performed by The Jackson Pellegrino Quartet.

An exciting complement to this event is an exclusive preview of the Olmsted exhibit on Friday evening, May 16, from 7 pm to 9 pm as part of the new Raising the Roof campaign, to help fund the replacement of the 100-year-old roof of the Durand-Hedden House. Tickets for that preview event are $75 and include a guided tour of this new exhibit with expert Janet Mandel, along with refreshments and music performed by pianist and vocalist Emma Phillips. Your support for this special event will provide funds for the roof project and ensure that Durand-Hedden can continue to offer its unique community programming for years to come.

Durand-Hedden is grateful to Pollock Properties Group, the generous sponsor of the student musicians who will play at the fundraiser and the May 18 Open House. Charlie and Vanessa Pollock are the founders of the Pollock Arts Initiative which, in partnership with the Achieve Foundation, promotes access and equity for art education for all children in our school district.

Visit DurandHedden.org for free pre-registration for the May 18 lecture and to purchase tickets for the May 16 fundraiser.

The use of The Woodland Parlor, 60 Woodland Avenue, Maplewood, is generously donated by the Maplewood Division of Arts & Culture.