Vermont Events
- This event has passed.
For The Love Of Vermont Exhibit Opening Reception in Bennington
July 15, 2023 @ 3:30 pm - 6:00 pm
More than 200 works of art that capture Vermont’s unique character, people, traditions and landscape prior to the 1970’s from the collection of Lyman Orton, proprietor of the Vermont Country Store, will be unveiled to the public in an unprecedented collaboration by two of Vermont’s most celebrated museums — Southern Vermont Arts Center and Bennington Museum.
The show opens July 1 at the Bennington Museum with an opening reception July 15 that will include a talk with Orton, author Anita Rafael—who wrote a book about Orton’s collection—and museum director Martin Mahoney at 3:30 p.m., followed by an opening reception 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The Orton Collection, exhibited at SVAC and Bennington Museum through Nov. 5, 2023, focuses primarily on work from 1920 to 1960 and includes many of the artists who set the stage for the Southern Vermont Art Center.
More than 65 artists will be represented including Rockwell Kent, John Clymer, Churchill Ettinger, Paul Sample, Mead Schaeffer, John Atherton, Marion Huse, Kyra Markham, Bernadine Custer, and others. Many applied for work with the New Deal and the Federal Arts Project during the Great Depression. A significant part of the collection, about one-fifth, is artworks by Vermont women, as well as by women who journeyed into the mountains to draw and paint.