Press

The New York State Museum will open a new exhibition featuring the 70-year career of artist Eugene Ludins on February 16, 2013. Eugene Ludins: An American Fantasist, explores the life and work of a noted Woodstock, New York painter of realist and fantastical landscapes, provocative political allegories, and insightful portraits.

On display in the West Gallery through May 12, 2013, the exhibition features over 60 of Ludins’ paintings and drawings. The public is invited to an opening reception of the exhibition at the Museum on Saturday, March 2, from 2 to 4 p.m.

“The New York State Museum is grateful to Peter Jones and the Estate of Eugene Ludins for its support of the exhibition,” said State Museum Director Mark Schaming. “We are pleased to be a venue for the work of this important New York artist, whose life illuminates the significance of the Woodstock community in the art world. Eugene Ludins lived a life of integrity and civic-mindedness, fully dedicated to art.”

Beginning with his residency at the Maverick colony in Woodstock in 1929 until the time of his death in 1996, Ludins was an important member of the Hudson Valley arts community. He was Ulster County director of the New Deal Federal Arts Program of the Works Progress Administration from 1937-39, a field director of the American Red Cross in the Pacific Theater of World War II, and an art professor at the University of Iowa. Dozens of paintings, drawings, sketch books, photographs, and memorabilia illuminate the life of an artist who was both unique and emblematic of his time.

Eugene Ludins: An American Fantasist is co-sponsored by the estate of Eugene Ludins and is based on an exhibition of the same name curated by Susana Torruella Leval for the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz. Leval will lead a gallery tour of the exhibition at the State Museum on Sunday, April 28 at 1 p.m. Leval, and her husband Pierre, were friends of Eugene Ludins and his wife, Hannah Small.

Photos from the exhibit are available at: http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/PRkit/2013/ludins/index.html

The New York State Museum is a program of the State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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