A folk art portrait by Jacob Maentel, depicting Elizabeth Preston with her nephew, Frank Crumb and neice, Elizabeth Ann Crumb, brought $28,750.

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. – “Modern Metropolis,” an exhibition surveying the portrayal of New York City in modern art, opens on Friday, April 5, at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College and will run until Sunday, June 16.

A public opening and reception for “Modern Metropolis” will take place on Thursday, April 4. A curators’ presentation at 6 pm in room 102 of Taylor Hall at Vassar College will be followed by a reception in the galleries. Both events are free and open to the public.

The paintings, prints, drawings and photographs in the exhibition span the years from the Armory Show of 1913, which introduced Americans to the aesthetics of modern European painting and sculpture, to the rise of the “New York School” painters in the 1950s.

So vast and quick-changing that it baffled traditional means of portrayal, New York City, the ultimate “modern metropolis,” spurred artists from around the world to forge new modes of urban imagination and to invent artistic techniques equal to the richness of their surroundings.

The show will feature the work of more than 40 artists, including Man Ray, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Steichen, Lewis Hine, Margaret Bourke-White, Stuart Davis, Joseph Stella and Alfred Stieglitz.

“Modern Metropolis” combines art from the permanent collection of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center with works loaned from selected public and private collections. The exhibition and its fully illustrated checklist brochure, featuring essays by curators Patricia Phagan and Joel Smith, are made possible by support from the Smart Family Foundation, Inc.

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 am to 5 pm, and Sunday from 1 to 5 pm. For information, 845-437-5632.