In a way, it all started with the railway. Put another way, there were too many forces to count that made the east end of Long Island — known as the Hamptons, or “Outer East” to locals — an internationally recognized arts scene, but women were essential. In a changing society, women have choices and mobility that they never had before; Many turned towards the arts.
In 1870, the Long Island Railroad operated a line that expanded service from New York all the way east to the agricultural and seafaring towns of Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor. In 1884, Mary and Thomas Moran were among the first artists to set up an easel in East Hampton. Others followed. The pristine landscape with wide, flat fields of endless green skies surrounded by waterways creates the kind of light that inspired Dutch artists.
“It’s the power of the beauty of the landscape here. It tends to make people notice it and work with it,” April Gornick, a contemporary painter and one of the women keeping the Hamptons art scene vibrant, told the Observer. “It’s light, but the light comes from being the end of an island jumping into the Atlantic Ocean. And then the way it all spreads out. For me, it’s like an exhalation.”
After living and working in the East for nearly 40 years, Gornick and her husband, artist Eric Fischl, founded Church, a non-profit, interdisciplinary arts venue in Sag Harbor. Her curatorial work has deepened her sense of the history of women artists in the region, from contemporaries such as Vija Celmins, Cindy Sherman, and Nanette Carter to historical figures such as Moran, Evelina Mount, and Annie Cooper Boyd. In the church’s current exhibit, “This Land: Considering the American Landscape,” she noted, “There’s an engraving by Mary Nimmo Moran that’s just a trick. It’s wonderful.”
With easier access, more artists traveled from New York. In 1891, the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art was founded by Janet Ralston Chase Hoyt, a philanthropist and artist who spent her summers in Southampton. She learned that William Merritt Chase wanted to bring a new kind of American art, and Hoyt chose him to found the first outdoor painting school in the country. “I don’t recognize gender in art,” said Chase, a respected teacher, who welcomed the female students and teachers. The Shinnecock Summer School of Art was instrumental in the establishment of American Impressionism, which itself featured a number of prominent female artists.
Artists gravitate towards other artists, so the creative community continues to grow. In 1931, Mary Woodhouse donated land and funds to found Guild Hall, an arts center in East Hampton that included a theater and a museum. In 1949, their controversial group “17 Artists from Eastern Long Island” presented works by Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, and other Abstract Expressionists, heralding a new cultural shift.
The idea of affordable housing and the Hamptons hardly mesh now, but in the 1950s and 1960s, New York office workers, firefighters, and policemen could afford summer homes and cottages back east. Once Krasner and Pollock settled down, Lee encouraged other artists to look for venues. It wasn’t long before Abstract Expressionism had two addresses: downtown Manhattan and the Hamptons.
Eileen de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan, Pearl Vine, Mercedes Matter, and Joan Mitchell all called the Hamptons home at one time. (Fun fact: Joan Mitchell played in the inaugural East Hampton Artists and Writers’ Softball Game in 1948 with teammates Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline.)
“It was affordable at the time,” Christina Moses Strassfeld, executive director of the Southampton Center for the Arts, told the Observer. “Even if there was no heat, it was a great opportunity.”
Strassfeld herself has been shaping the Hamptons art scene since 1987 when she began as associate curator and registrar at the Guild Hall Museum. After rising to the position of Museum Director, she will move to Southampton Arts Center as Executive Director in 2023.
Although the quality of the work has always come first for her, during her years in the Hamptons she championed so many female artists that the Guerrilla Girls took notice when they visited. “They screened a number of institutions on Long Island, and we got an A+ because we did a lot of one-woman shows. I was really, really proud of that,” Strassfeld recalls. The list extends from postwar artists such as Connie Fox, Jane Wilson, Jane Frelicher, Audrey Flack, and Miriam Shapiro to a younger generation that includes Gornick, Barbara Kruger, Pat Steer, and Laurie Anderson.
Strassfeld also pointed out the important role of women in developing exhibitions, since the days of the Abstract Expressionists. “They would meet on the beach every day after they painted,” she said. “They would take a break and they would all hang out together, men and women, and talk about art.” The artist’s annual exhibition at Ashwag Hall in East Hampton played a large role. “Many women, especially Eileen de Kooning, were active in organizing the ‘Springs Invitational’ and included artists, their husbands and themselves, in organizing and organizing these exhibitions.”
She added: “John Little’s wife, Josephine Little, was an artist and actually ran Cigna Gallery, which was one of the first art galleries in the Hamptons… When she came out, years ago in 1987, Arlene Boggess was one of the main gallerists. Ruth Verd was a major gallerist and Elaine Benson. That was the strong foothold of the three galleries in the Hamptons.”
On Long Island right now, all the art museums have women as directors. This is a big step. Parrish Museum of Art in
While Gornick expressed discomfort with the term “artist” and Strassfeld stressed that “if it’s done by a woman but it’s not good art, it’s not worth showing,” they both agreed that they were trying to elevate female artists. “It’s like having a cause, like being part of a resistance group, where you’re always trying to support the other people in your group,” Gornick said. “There is a great sorority of understanding that lifts women up as we try to overcome this entrenched bias.”
“You have to show good art whether it’s made by a woman or a man,” Strassfeld stressed, adding: “I think at a certain point we won’t think about that anymore.”
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