The Hancock House is exhibiting “Oil & Water: Paintings of Lake George 1860-1945” through August 26. This exhibition marks the reopening of the museum’s refurbished Assembly Room, and offers an opportunity to view the region through the eyes of many American painters who revered this area and who through their works gave it national prominence. The Ticonderoga Historical Society will celebrate its 30th anniversary as steward of The Hancock House with a public reception on Thursday, July 6, at 6 pm.
Artists in the exhibition include William M. Hart, Richard William Hubbard, John Bunyan Bristol, John Henry Hill, Nelson Augustus Moore, Nikolay Tysland Leganger, Harry Willson Watrous, Gustave Cimiotti, Walter Paris and Eugene Spiro.
“In 1826, James Fenimore Cooper wrote ‘The beauties of Lake George are well known,'” said Stuart Cartwright, guest curator for the exhibit. “This truth is documented by a generation of artists who followed Cooper and his artistic friend Thomas Cole beyond the Hudson River into these fabled mountains.”
The summer exhibit brings together beautiful landscape paintings that display scenes of Lake George and surrounding area. Black Mountain, Tongue Mountain, Sabbath Day Point, Kattskill Bay, the Ausable River and Lake Champlain served as inspiration for these important American artists. Fort Ticonderoga is the subject of a Cimiotti oil.
The nearby hamlet of Hague on Lake George was summer home todistinguished artists who captured the lake in the years followingthe Civil War.
“Robert Melvin Decker invited many of his fellow artists, including David Johnson, Aaron Draper Shattuck and John Bunyan Bristol, to his studio on the lake in the Nineteenth Century,” said Cartwright. “One of Hague’s most prominent summer residents, Harry Watrous, served as president of the art world’s prestigious National Academy of Design.”
Originally built in 1926, The Hancock House was a gift to the New York State Historical Association from Ticonderoga philanthropist Horace A. Moses. He built the house for “the purpose of perpetuating American Traditions in History and the Fine Arts.” Hancock House, 6 Moses Circle, is at the crossroads of Lake George, Lake Champlain and the Eastern Adirondacks on Route 9N at the Liberty Monument circle. Ticonderoga is less than an hour’s drive from Lake Placid, Saratoga, or Bennington, Vermont.
For additional information, www.thehancockhouse.org or 518-585-7868.
