2 cols.

Charles Rosen, “Opalescent Morning,” circa 1909, oil on canvas, 32 by 40 inches. James A. Michener Art Museum.

3-16 must run (cover story follows)

FROM IMPRESSIONIST TO MODERNIST, THE PAINTINGS OF CHARLES ROSEN

 W/1 cut; set 2-16; AK; #688940

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. — Charles Rosen (1878–1950) moved from being one of the most distinguished Pennsylvania Impressionist landscape painters to become deeply involved in the Woodstock, N.Y., art scene as a modernist painter. The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz is presenting a major exhibition of 50 of Rosen’s paintings and works on paper that reflect his radical transformation.

Supplemented with a collection of ephemera from the Rosen family’s private collection, “Form Radiating Life: The Paintings of Charles Rosen” includes major examples of both Rosen’s landscape and modernist styles. The exhibit was organized by the James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Penn., and will be on view till May 20.

The exhibition was initiated through a shared interest in Rosen’s work by Dorsky museum director Neil Trager and Michener museum curator Brian H. Peterson. Trager facilitated relationships with Charles Rosen’s granddaughter Katherine Worthington-Taylor, a resident of Woodstock; local collectors of Rosen’s work; and Tom Wolf, professor of art history at Bard College, whose catalog essay provides insight into Rosen’s Woodstock years.

The works in the exhibition are drawn from the collections of the James. A. Michener Art Museum, as well as from other public institutions and private collections in Connecticut, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Washington, D.C. 

For ten years, studying, reading, observing, experimenting, Rosen fought his way out of the old standards and conception of painting toward a new vision, a vision not poetical, not sentimental, but honest and sincere. He became interested in the challenge of homely things, in their structure and in their reality.

“Form Radiating Life” is accompanied by a major publication that provides an in-depth examination of the life and work of Charles Rosen, by Brian H. Peterson and co-published by the Michener Art Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Press.

The exhibition is free and open to the public. The Samuel Dorsky Museum is at 1 Hawk Drive. For information, www.newpaltz.edu/museum or 845-257-3844.