Guild Hall of East Hampton

Guild Hall of East Hampton in the incorporated Village of East Hampton on Long Island’s East End, is one of the United States’ first multidisciplinary cultural institutions. Opened in 1931, it was designed by architect Aymar Embury II and includes a visual art museum with three galleries and the John Drew Theater, a 360 seat proscenium stage. It is historically significant for its role in exhibiting the works of American Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner and Robert Motherwell, performances by Helen Hayes, Thornton Wilder, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, Eli Wallach & Anne Jackson and hundreds of other world-class stars of stage and screen; and involvement by literary figures George Plimpton, Peter Matthiessen Gore Vidal, Edward Albee and John Steinbeck. It holds a permanent collection of 2,400 works of art, and continues to build on important relationships in the worlds of film, theatre, dance, music, and visual art. The museum's current director is Andrea Grover who was previously Curator of Special Projects of the Parrish Art Museum.

History

Conceived of and mainly funded by philanthropist Mrs. Lorenzo E. Woodhouse, Guild Hall opened to great fanfare on August 19, 1931[1] “East Hampton has never known a celebration like that,” when 1,000 people crammed into the theatre and gallery. [2] The building site, on Main Street, was the former homestead of Samuel Miller, a farmer, between the First Presbyterian Church of East Hampton and Mulford Farm, a homestead which dates back to pre-Revolutionary War times. [3]

As stated in the legal documents granting permission for the forming of Guild Hall, its mission has been, from the outset, to “encourage and cultivate a taste for music, drama, and the arts through the presentation of musical, dramatic and other intellectual and instructive opinions; to furnish galleries for art entertainments; for the exchange of and objects of (sic) historical interest; to furnish a meeting place for various organizations; in short to promote and encourage a higher type of citizenship.”[4]

Guild Hall’s early trustees were predominantly members of the conservative social elite with token representation from the year-round community. Eventually, the “rebels in their own social set” persuaded the reluctant board to agree to a regional invitational visual arts show that would bring some of the most prominent artists of the day—as well as an embracing of more broad and avant garde criteria—to Guild Hall.[5]

Visual arts

In 1973, Guild Hall Museum was among the earliest institutions in the United States to receive formal accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums [wiki link]. Of the 35,000 museums nationwide, Guild Hall is still one of approximately 1,000 to hold this distinction. The museum mounts eight to ten exhibitions per year, including an East End-wide student art exhibition. One of two galleries at Guild Hall is named for its founder, Mrs. Lorenzo E. Woodhouse, another for painter Thomas Moran who, in the mid-19th century, is credited with “colonizing” the Village of East Hampton as an artists’ community. The third, smallest, gallery is named for East Hampton artist and collector Tito Spiga, whose bequest funded the building of the gallery upon his death in 1988.[6]

There have been many notable artists of historical interest who have exhibited at Guild Hall, such as Roy Lichtenstein, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Childe Hassam, Franz Kline, Robert Dash, Fairfield Porter, Thomas Moran, and Robert Motherwell. In recent years, art by area artists who are also internationally celebrated have included that of Larry Rivers, Ross Bleckner, Eric Fishel, April Gornik, Miriam Schapiro, Esteban Vicente, Barbara Kruger, Audrey Flack, Elaine de Kooning, Andy Warhol, Dan Flavin, Elliot Erwitt, Hans Namuth, Julian Schnabel, and Jane Wilson.

Notable exhibitions

17 Artists of Eastern Long Island: In 1949, the Board reluctantly agreed to the first Guild Hall regional invitational show, which installed works by Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Balcomb Greene and Nat Werner, among others. Attendance of the preview was one of the largest on record [7]. The show coincidentally coincided with the August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life magazine, "Jackson Pollock: Is He the Greatest Living Painter in the United States?" [8] which introduced Pollock to the world and solidified his role as an international sensation. Pollock and his wife, artist Lee Krasner, had been living and working at their famed studio in Springs, outside the Village, since 1945, which is now the Pollock-Krasner House. New Additions to the Guild Hall Permanent Collection: In 2014, the Museum held a major exhibition of works of area artists they had recently added to their permanent collection. The exhibit reflected “the abundance and diversity of artistic practice on the East End of Long Island and provides a thought-provoking exhibition that beckons revisiting…” [9]. Works by Works by Jennifer Bartlett, Chuck Close, Carolyn Conrad, Robert Dash, Eric Fischl, Cornelia Foss, Ralph Gibson, April Gornik, Mary Heilmann, William King, Barbara Kruger, Thomas Moran, Costantino Nivola, Alfonso Ossorio, Betty Parsons, Clifford Ross, David Salle, and Carol Saxe were included. Robert Motherwell: The East Hampton Years, 1944-1952: Curated by Phyllis Tuchman and accompanied by a book with the same title, the 2014 show of approximately 25 works brought together the famed Abstract Expressionist Motherwell’s fusion of gestural abstraction and color field painting, while also including some of his collages and published examples of his work as an editor.[10]

Annual Artist Members Exhibition First was mounted in 1938, the sole criterion is membership in Guild Hall. The exhibit has been noted for its non-jury policy which, in an area historically known for the visual arts and its close proximity to New York City, creates a mix of “prestigious area professionals showing next to those less well known and hoping to be discovered.”[11]

Theatre Arts

The John Drew Theater at Guild Hall produces more than 100 programs each year including plays, concerts, dance performances, film screenings, simulcasts, and literary readings. It was posthumously named for matinee idol John Drew, a member of the Barrymore family who summered in East Hampton in the late 19th century to early 20th century. The Theater has an octagonal shape, jewel-box proscenium stage, and blue and white striped trompe l’oeil circus-tent ceiling that sweeps up to a chandelier of glass balloons.

In its early years, the theater served as a summer testing ground for productions en route to Broadway. Legendary playwrights such as Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill credited Guild Hall with helping to establish their reputations, while others like Edward Albee had a lifelong relationship with the John Drew Theater, where he was an active member of the Guild Hall Academy of the Arts. Performers have included Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award-winning luminaries Alec Baldwin, Matthew Broderick, Blythe Danner, James Earl Jones, Patti LuPone, Wynton Marsalis, Liza Minnelli, Leslie Odom, Jr., Audra McDonald, Laurie Metcalf, Mercedes Ruehl, Steve Martin, and Marlo Thomas; dance companies Alvin Ailey, New York City Ballet, and Pilobolus; performance artists Laurie Anderson and Meredith Monk; directors Robert Wilson, Susan Stroman, Tony Walton, Harris Yulin, Bob Fosse, Gwen Verdon and Julie Taymor; jazz greats such as Winton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Sonny Rollins, Earl Klugh and Regina Carter; comedians Jay Leno, Joy Behar, John Leguizamo, Jerry Seinfeld, and Martin Short,; and legendary musicians Mavis Staples, Patti Smith, Philip Glass, Billy Joel, Liza Minnelli, and The Beach Boys.

The theater underwent a detailed renovation in 2007, under architect Robert A.M. Stern, restoring the original 1931 details while installing new AV and mechanical systems, digitized lighting controls, motorized rigging and moving lights, and upgraded technical booth. [12] The tradition of providing a testing ground for artists to make work continues today with the John Drew Theater Lab. and a strong emphasis on developmental readings. The John Drew Theater’s current Artistic Director Josh Gladstone has programmed and produced the performing arts programming at Guild Hall since 2000.

Notable productions The longest-running off-Broadway musical, “The Fantasticks,” was produced at Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater, before being extended to its historic New York run. Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron debuted “Love, Loss, and What I Wore” at Guild Hall before taking the play Off Broadway. “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, starring Amy Irving and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, was the inaugural play after the two-year John Drew Theater renovation.[13] Alec Baldwin and Laurie Metcalf starred in a strong revival of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” in 2015.

Hamptons Film Festival Since the inception of the Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF), Guild Hall has played a role in the festival. The theater screens films during the festival, as well as offering special programming and screening during the year in partnership with HIFF. Academy Award-winning films that have premiered at the festival and screened at Guild Hall have included Gods and Monsters, Black Swan, Pollock, and Moonlight.

Education and community

Academy of the Arts Past recipients of the Academy of the Arts award have included actor Lauren Bacall, artist Paul Davis, and author John Irving [16]. Artist Eric Fischl is the current Academy of the Arts President. The Academy expanded its charter to support and mentor emerging artists with the mission of sustaining the legacy of the Hamptons as an arts colony with The Artist in Residence (AIR) program.

Hamptons Institute The Hamptons Institute, originally formed in 2010 by the Roosevelt Institute and Board Chair Melville “Mickey” Straus, [14] was revised by actor Alec Baldwin and Institute director Tracy Marshall in 2016, to present a range of intellectual and professional perspectives on challenging issues, and to engage in thoughtful debate and deliberation on subjects that range from economics and business to politics and public policy, and from arts and culture, too the role of the media. Panel discussions in recent years have featured panelists Amy Goodman, Nicholas Lemann, NPR’s Bob Garfield, Jonathan Alter, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Dr. Paul Farmer, Elizabeth Warren, Van Jones, Ken Auletta, Katie Couric, John Podhoretz, and Monica Crowley. According to Baldwin, “What Tracy Marshall and I did was revive, at the request of Andrea Grover, executive director at Guild Hall, the old Hamptons Institute that Mickey Straus had put together… with a little bit of trepidation, because I thought it’s [something] where you live or die by who you cast. Who are you going to get to do this? Are they well known or are they really just these dazzling authorities? Who’s going to show up, and therefore what kind of a program are we going to have? How are we going to be received? … The final one, this year, is ‘The New Normal in News: Ideology vs. Fact,’ which I am moderating, is all about the discussion of fake news versus mainstream media.”[15]

Education programs Guild Hall’s founding principal in 1931 was to be a gathering place where an appreciation for the arts would serve “to promote a finer type of citizenship” [16], with educational programs championing a vigorous, growing network of intergenerational artists who will, in turn, extend the legacy of the region as one of the country’s most storied arts colonies. Guild Hall offers a variety of educational programs in the visual and performing arts for children ages 5–18. The Guild Hall Teen Arts Council (GHTAC) is a newly launched program that offers ten teenagers per year the opportunity to work for Guild Hall as content producers, curators, and programmers. Modeled after the Walker Art Center’s pioneering program, the GHTAC meets bimonthly with a GH coordinator to generate programming for their peers. GHTAC members are chosen each semester by an application process and are paid for their work.

References

  1. ↑ Whipple, Enez (1993). Guild Hall: An Adventure in the Arts. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-3384-5.
  2. ↑ Editor (August 21, 1931). ""Guild Hall Formally Opens"". The East Hampton Start.
  3. ↑ Whipple, Enez (1993). Guild Hall: An Adventure in the Arts. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-3384-5.
  4. ↑ Editor (August 21, 1931). ""Guild Hall Formally Opened"". The East Hampton Star.
  5. ↑ Whipple, Enez (1993). Guild Hall: An Adventure in the Arts. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-3384-5.
  6. ↑ Whipple, Enez (1993). Guild Hall: An Adventure in the Arts. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-3384-5.
  7. ↑ Whipple, Enez (1993). Guild Hall: An Adventure in the Arts. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-3384-5.
  8. ↑ "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?". Life Magazine. August 8, 1949.
  9. ↑ deTroy, Stephanie (November 20, 2014). ""New Additions"". Dans Papers.
  10. ↑ Schwendener, Martha (October 3, 2014). ""Review: Arts (Abstract) and Letters: Robert Motherwell in East Hampton,"". The New York Times.
  11. ↑ Whipple, Enez (1993). Guild Hall: An Adventure in the Arts. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-3384-5.
  12. ↑ Hinkle, Annette (April 23, 2008). ""East Hampton's Guild Hall: Rebirth of a Theatre"". The Sag Harbor Express.
  13. ↑ Siegel, Naomi (July 17, 2009). ""Menagerie Moves in as Theater Reopens"". The New York Times.
  14. ↑ Editor (May 3, 2014). "Obituary". The New York Times.
  15. ↑ Samantha, Yanks (August 9, 2017). ""Alec Baldwin Talks"". Hamptons Magazine.
  16. ↑ Editor (August 21, 1931). ""Guild Hall Formally Opened"". The East Hampton Star.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.