For The Love of Vermont: Lyman Orton Shares a Remarkable Collection
“Carnival at Royalton, Vermont.” It’s the swings . . .
One exhibition, two museums. It’s a stunner. And you’ll find the Upper Valley is a part of it.
In what is being called “ . . . an unprecedented collaboration,” two of Vermont’s most celebrated museums — Bennington Museum and Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester—are showing works from the extensive private collection of Lyman Orton. The exhibition, titled For The Love of Vermont, is on view in each museum until November 5.
Seventh generation Vermonter Lyman Orton is the proprietor of The Vermont Country Store, an old-time retail establishment with locations in Weston and Rockingham, Vermont. But it is perhaps best known for its longtime mail order business that made its way into thousands of homes in the form of a humble black and white, thin-paper catalog. It describes itself as “the Purveyors of the Practical and Hard-to-Find, since 1946.” You can find wool and flannel clothing, canning and other kitchen supplies, penny candy. At a minimum, the catalog listings always made for good reading.
Orton has been collecting art about Vermont and by Vermont artists for a long time. “According to Jamie Franklin, curator, Bennington Museum, ‘Lyman Orton’s collection is the largest collection of historic Vermont art in private hands — that is to say, not in a museum or academic collection. Because Vermont is rural, and because it is a place that is culture-rich but money-poor, there haven’t been a lot of independent efforts to focus on the artists who lived in Vermont and who depicted this place and the people who live here. Orton’s collection is the collection of Vermont art of the 20th century.’”
Hundreds of viewers showed up for the opening on July 22 at the Southern Vermont Arts Center for an exhibition with a total of 200 works of art by 65 Vermont artists. As the current Vermont Almanac tries to capture life in the Green Mountain State in words, this Orton collection does the same in visual arts. If you live in and/or love Vermont, the images will delight but not entirely surprise: many landscapes in various seasons, barns (some red, some round), village streets, logging, farming, an old-fashioned snow roller, Vermonters just getting on with the tasks of daily rural life. The collection, which stretches over several galleries in SVAC’s Yester House, is instructive, evocative, beautiful. Impossible to pick an absolute favorite but once my eyes found artist Arthur Jones’s barns, I had to be coaxed into moving on. If you are now living (or have ever lived) in Vermont, viewing these paintings leaves you with a sense of pride and privilege to be a part of the unique culture of this state.
And the Upper Valley? “Another Day” by Paul Starrett Sample (photo, above) depicts a familiar spot in Norwich, Vermont. “The church in this village scene was called Beaver Meadow Union Chapel, built in 1915, in Norwich, Vermont. It is now known as the West Norwich Union Church.” And then there is the somewhat unexpected and lively (photo, below) “Carnival at Royalton, Vermont”by Cecil Crosley Bell, showing Royalton townsfolk flying through the air.
So many paintings grasp the gist of an ordinary day. A favorite by Leo Blake (below) is set in winter, where no matter the snow, life-sustaining chores—gathering wood, hanging laundry—demand attention. That cat, though . . . watchful or oblivious?
For further information about this exhibition and the Southern Vermont Arts Center, please visit its website. Bennington Museum information can be found here. To sample more of the exhibition works, please click here.
(Photo, top, and of Sample painting by Susan B. Apel. All other images with permission and courtesy of Southern Vermont Arts Center.)
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.