Renovations at Chautauqua's Strohl Art Center bring about new life, abstract art
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Judy Barie, galleries director, and visual arts director Don Kimes in the Strohl Art Center at the Chautauqua Institution. -
Daniel Eggert of Allegany, N.Y., in front of the Athenaeum Hotel in Chautauqua. -
The Athenaeum Hotel built in 1881. In the foreground are very young trees, older wooden benches and an unpaved walk. -
Chautauqua artistic director Don Kimes poses for a portrait in the Strohl Art Center at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, NY. -
Lara Mann of Wilmette, Ill., walks through the lobby in the Athenaeum Hotel. Ms. Mann works as a gallery assistant. -
Melanie Chmura of New Castle, in the background, Ashley Johnson of Jamestown, N.Y., center, and Mary Richardson of Findley Lake, N.Y., set tables for dinner in the Athenaeum Hotel. All three work as waitstaff for special events.
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CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. -- At this summer haven for lifelong learners, the arts have been in the forefront since 1874. But the visual arts were exhibited in two charming yet shopworn buildings.
Now, with an infusion of $6.2 million from private donors, artists have two first-class galleries and a sculpture garden to showcase their work at Chautauqua Institution. Strohl Art Center is a cool, contemporary space with 6,000 square feet of white walls, hardwood floors and high ceilings, the kind of gallery you'd find in New York's Chelsea neighborhood.
Phone: 1-800-836-ARTS.
Box office: 1-716-357-6250.
Address: 1 Ames Ave., Chautauqua, NY 14722.
Website: www.ciweb.org, then click on the visual arts tab.
Admission: A Chautauqua morning pass costs $18 and runs from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. An afternoon pass, with admission from noon until 8 p.m., is $12. A morning-afternoon pass, which runs from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m., is $26.
Art shows: "Out of the Blue" at the Strohl Art Center runs through Aug. 23. "Abstraction in America: The 1940s to the 1960s" runs through Aug. 22. The Strohl Art Center and the Fowler-Kellogg Art Center are open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. The buildings are located at Pratt and Ramble streets.
Just across a stone plaza at Ramble and Pratt streets is the Fowler-Kellogg Art Center, a restored Queen Anne-style jewel whose perfectly painted exterior glows with light yellow and Delft blue. Built in 1889, the interior of the former Anne M. Kellogg Memorial Hall is an uptown affair with soft lighting, coffered wooden ceilings and Brazilian cherry hardwood floors.
Until the 1950s, Strohl served as a cafeteria, then became an exhibition space with no air conditioning and clip-on lights attached to the ceiling and walls with duct tape. Each spring, before the 100-year-old building reopened for the eight-week season, Judy Barie, Chautauqua's director of galleries, often found critters living above the dropped ceiling.
First Published August 7, 2011 12:00 am
