Dale Stewart reports from Chatham, NY.On Friday, May 31, one of the hottest days so far this year, intrepid gallery-goers packed shoulder to shoulder into the small Thompson Giroux Gallery on Main Street in Chatham to get a rare peek both at the art and actual person of Ellsworth Kelly for his 90th birthday. (He is pictured to the left with gallery owners Bill Thompson and Marie Claude Giroux.) A painter, sculptor, printmaker, and granddaddy of the Color Field and minimalist schools of painting, the Spencertown resident has also become a generous patron to the arts. Recently, through his Ellsworth Kelly Foundation (EKF), he has given $1.7 million to the school systems in Columbia County, education enrichment funds for the arts through the auspices of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. The show at the gallery, Happy Birthday Ellsworth!: A Collection of Prints by Ellsworth Kelly (with additional work by the EK Boys, Jack Shear, Nick Walters, and Joseph Yetto) will be on exhibit through June 30.
Tom and Sarah Crowell with their daughter Caroline; Painter Bob Newman with Susan Fenton.
Stephanie Henckle and Jordan Crane; Denise D'Agostino and Jed Cleary.
Ryan and Kat McClellane with Alice Corbalis.
Pablo Hortons, Lana Morrison, and Steve Blair; Seth and Catherine Labo with Jack Shear.
Ken Kraus and Anna D'Onokrio; Chris Shaver and Lauri Ondriska.
Artists Tatiana Klacsmann and David Franck with ceramicist Mary Ann Davis.
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Matteline deVries-Dilling, founder of Lite Brite Neon, one of the evening's honoree of this year's Upstate Benefit adresses the gala from the Caboose's caboose.
- Karen Pearson. Courtesy Art Omi.
Olana senior vice president and landscape curatorMark Prezorski, president Sean Sawyer, The evenings honoree Kristin Gamble and New York State Assemblymember Didi Barrett.
- Oxygen House Photo
