The Southern Vermont Arts Center is pleased to present an exhibition entirely drawn from its collection. The exhibition will feature the group of 20th century artists who called themselves “the Southern Vermont Artists” and were among the founders of the Southern Vermont Arts Center, as well as other artists with strong ties to this region. Paintings by Reginald Marsh, Ogden Pleissner, Anna Mary Robertson Moses (a.k.a. Grandma Moses), and Guy Pene du Bois will be on view in the Hunter Gallery alongside some of the notable members of the Southern Vermont Artists–Jay Hall Connaway, Wallace Fahnestock, and Harry Shokler. The works of contemporary Vermont painters Lea Erhrich, Arthur Jones, and Brian Sweetland will also be on view.

In the Lucioni gallery, SVAC will display its comprehensive collection of the work of the Italian-born Vermont painter for whom the gallery is named, Luigi Lucioni (1900-1988). A selection of Lucioni’s paintings, watercolors, and etchings will illustrate the artist’s prolific career.

Lucioni was born in Italy in 1900 and moved to New York City with his family in 1911. In 1932 he became the youngest contemporary American to have a painting purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York–a 1930 still life entitled “Pears with Pewter.” In the same year, he came to Vermont for a commission in Shelburn and saw the Champlain Valley for the first time. It was like “seeing the mountainsides of my birthplace,” he said.  “I fell in love with Vermont.” He moved to Manchester in 1939 and spent each summer painting here until his death in 1988. 

SVAC will incorporate a “crowd-sourced” interactive component to the exhibition, asking visitors to share their knowledge of the artists on display and inviting visitor feedback about the works on view for future research and exhibitions.