Curated by Anna Conlan

January 22 – April 5, 2020
Alice and Horace Chandler Gallery and North Gallery

Leonard Contino was a self-taught abstract artist whose tenacious exploration of pictorial space spanned a fifty-year career. In 1959 at the age of 19, Leonard Contino suffered a spinal cord injury after a diving accident, which left him with paralysis in all four limbs and using a wheelchair for the rest of his life. While at a rehabilitation hospital in New York City, Contino met a fellow patient, the acclaimed sculptor Mark di Suvero, who would become a lifelong close friend and collaborator. With di Suvero’s encouragement and the help of a metal brace to support his wrist, Contino began to draw and then to paint. He went on to create extraordinary art for the next five decades, becoming devoted to his daily practice of painting from morning to evening, and then often making collages late into the night. Contino later observed that being an artist was like a religious calling, you have to be “totally dedicated.”

Featuring over seventy artworks, Totally Dedicated is the largest exhibition of Contino’s work to date and encompasses large hard-edged geometric paintings, playful collages, delicate reliefs and sculptures from the 1960s through the 2000s. It also includes two sculptures that di Suvero and Contino made together.

Curated by Hanna Maria Sawka and Dr. Frank Boyer

February 8 – July 12, 2020
Morgan Anderson Gallery & Howard Greenberg Family Gallery

Jan Sawka (1946–2012) was a noted contemporary artist of Polish origin and global reach. His work is in the collections of over 60 museums worldwide. Sawka lived and worked in the mid-Hudson Valley from 1985 until his death, conceiving of and producing many of his most notable works in his High Falls, NY, studio.

This exhibition is made up of works that illuminate two aspects of his practice, his fascination with human consciousness, in this case, with memory, and his interest in place, and the places through which a human life passes. Sawka’s working method and artworks are truly visionary, in the sense that he always worked from mental images. Every work he did is open to his thoughts, his emotions, his mental associations, and, above all to memory.

Curated by Anna Conlan

February 8 – July 12, 2020
Sara Bedrick Gallery

The Hudson Valley is home to a vibrant community of artists and makers and The Dorsky Museum is committed to supporting their work. For the last twelve years we have invited local artists to share their new work through our juried Hudson Valley Artists exhibition. From hundreds of submissions, curators select artwork that resonates with a chosen theme. The aim is to gather exciting new work in a cohesive exhibition, whilst demonstrating the strength and diversity of contemporary art across the eleven counties. Thanks to the Alice and Horace Chandler Art Acquisitions Fund, each year artwork from the Hudson Valley Artists exhibition is chosen for the Annual Purchase Award and becomes part of our permanent collection. Collecting Local allows the public to see these outstanding artworks displayed together for the first time.

Curated by Wayne Lempka

Ongoing
Corridor Gallery

From its humble beginnings in the 1950s, the permanent collection of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (formerly known as The College Art Gallery) has grown to comprise roughly 6,000 objects spanning over 4,000 years. While many individuals have been responsible for the increase in the number of objects accessioned into the collection, it was through the initial efforts of both the University’s Faculty Wives Club and the Arts & Crafts Society that a permanent collection was established on campus. When one considers that the few hundred objects which initially formed the core of the permanent collection in the 1950s, have grown to comprise approximately 6,000 objects, one cannot help but reflect upon the diligent efforts and the extreme generosity of a vast number of patrons over the last six decades.