Building Fund

BUILDING FUND

Maintaining the historic buildings in which the school operates is crucial for us to continue our offerings of classes, workshops, exhibitions, and special events. The unique artwork being offered here for sale was generously donated by supporters of the school in the express interest of benefitting the Building Fund. For a complete description of our buildings conditions read the Existing Conditions Report prepared in part with funds provided by The National Trust for Historic Preservation. Please click on any image for more information and an enlarged view.

ELIZABETH BROAD
Spinning Wheel

ELIZABETH BROAD
Anvil

ELIZABETH BROAD
Woodworker

PAMELA WARDWELL
Hammer, Compass, Rule

PAMELA WARDWELL
Stone Flowers

KATE MCGLOUGHLIN
The Forge

KATE MCGLOUGHLIN
Gardening

WILMA MILLER
Plowing

WILMA MILLER
Potter's Hands

Woodstock artist Meyer Lieberman was born in New York City in 1923. He studied at the Art Students League with Reginald Marsh and the the Pratt Graphic Center with Andrew Stasik. A full-time artist for most of his 90 years, Meyer was originally inspired by his personal reading and interpretation of the Bible to create drawings and paintings with Biblical themes. Captivated by the concerts at the Maverick after moving to Woodstock in the 1970s, many of his later works feature musicians and their instruments. Meyer's work has a playful, lyrical quality, infused with a sense of humor. Much of his work was rendered in a pointillist style, including not only characteristic dots of color, but with inventive patterns, filling flat shapes with color, for an effect which is both representational and abstract.

MEYER LIEBERMAN
Sunset over the Rondout

MEYER LIEBERMAN
Friends

MEYER LIEBERMAN
Ravel

MEYER LIEBERMAN
Song of the Butterfly

MEYER LIEBERMAN
Contest

MEYER LIEBERMAN
Contest 2

MEYER LIEBERMAN
Temptation

MEYER LIEBERMAN
Lovers Over Woodstock

MEYER LIEBERMAN
High and Low Notes

MEYER LIEBERMAN
King David Over Jerusalem

Granddaughter of Nathan Handwerker, the founder of Coney Island’s famous hot dog empire, Frances Rhea Basch put aside familial and financial considerations early in her life to pursue a career as a visual artist.
After receiving her degree from the University of Michigan, Basch moved to Woodstock, New York to study with Arnold Blanch at The Art Students League’s summer school. At her time there, her approach to daily figure study was whetted and prolific, and her obsession with the description of form using line and color began. Working large and fast, her figurative paintings began to catch the attention of other artists working at this time, and she became a favorite in the milieu surrounding Arnold Blanch.
Working fervently as a student, Basch also immersed herself in the culture of that time and place: Woodstock, 1969. To make ends meet and to “see the show”, Basch accepted a job as line cook for the concession stand at “The Festival”, which also served to heighten her status among local Woodstock icons.
From 1991 until her untimely death in March of 2003, Frances Basch was once again immersed in the Woodstock Art Community, making lasting friends among the faculty of the Woodstock School of Art, and showing regularly at the Woodstock Artists Association. The last twelve years of her life were devoted to landscape and figure painting—mostly in watercolor—and expressed in vibrant and sensuous hues, many with a ferocious line quality that compares with the same found in the work of Joan Mitchell and William deKooning. Watercolor and water-based monotypes executed in small format (8”x10” and smaller) are among the most illustrative of this claim, and Basch herself referred to these paintings as “her gems”.
Basch’s final foray into figure study (1999-2003) was executed in clay. Nearly twenty studies, all under 16”, still exist, and each belies the artist’s understanding of human form, and create an exaggerated response to the attitude and life force of each model; a study, perhaps, of their personae rather than their anatomy. Each figurine is a complete statement of the artist’s love of form, spark of genius, and consummate understanding of making art.
Whether it be a quick sketch dashed off from a model’s short pose, a toiled-over clay sculpture, or a color monotype devoted to the rapture of pure color, the work of Frances Rhea Basch will stand apart from the countless “good artists” of her time because of the absolute originality and feverish approach she took with each composition.