On the Road to Cragsmoor with Charles Courtney Curran journeys across the American artist Charles Courtney Curran’s (1861–1942) entire career, from his early portraits, late-nineteenth century works inspired by French Symbolism, and commercial illustrations to his better-known impressionist paintings that occupied his time at Cragsmoor.
Curran spent the last forty years of his working career summering and painting in Cragsmoor, an artist colony situated in the Shawangunk Mountains of New York. The works that came from those summers are often his most recognizable, depicting women in summer white dresses on the rocky ledges of Bear Hill. These paintings epitomize his impressionist style where bright sunshine creates an interplay of light and dappled shadows.
Drawn mainly from a private collection, the exhibition features paintings, rare photographs and archival materials, and Curran’s palettes and artist tools, along with works from public institutions and the holdings of the Albany Institute, including a selection of women’s costumes from the early twentieth century that mirror the styles worn by models in Curran’s paintings.
