Category Archives: Past Exhibition
Hoboken People and Places, 1976-1994: Photographs by Michael Flanagan
January 22 – July 2, 2017
When he moved to Hoboken in the mid-1970s, Michael Flanagan was already a seasoned photographer with a passion for developing his own prints through meticulous experimentation.
His camera of choice was a large format, four-by-five-inch Linhof view camera, mounted on a tripod. The equipment was bulky and cumbersome, but under his skilled hands, it yielded crisp, detailed black and white images. He even toted this same camera and tripod on his many trips abroad.
From 1976 to 1994, Flanagan lived near the corner of Bloomfield and 10th Streets, and many of his photographs document the changing storefronts of this uptown location. He was determined to capture a feature of Hoboken life that was swiftly fading during the course of that decade: Mom-and-Pop shops, and the blue-collar residents that populated the city.
Only a few of the corner businesses recorded in Flanagan’s photos survive today: Lisa’s Deli, Truglio’s Meat Market, and, on the northeast corner of his block, the Bloomfield Launderette. Through his photographs we can see what has long been lost: Pierro’s Butcher Shop before it closed, and its owner, Al Pierro, during its last days. Today, it’s a kids’ yoga studio.
On the southeast corner, we see the interior and exterior of Kusseluk’s Shoe Store, which maintained an ancient display of footwear during the years Mike lived in the neighborhood. That it remained open at all during the 1980s was paradoxical, as potential customers would have to beg Sam Kusseluk to sell them a pair of shoes-—and rarely succeeded. Today, the building hosts Anthony David’s restaurant and an adjacent tattoo parlor.
Opposite Kusseluk’s was Nellie’s Store, where a customer might find just about anything available at the city’s one big supermarket, but in smaller quantities. Like so many who owned and ran the corner stores in Hoboken in the 1980s, Nellie lived in the building, and seemed to be in the shop night and day, offering warm greetings along with candy bars, cans of soup, and cartons of milk.
Flanagan photographed other longtime residents: barkeeps, plumbers, mailmen, retired longshoremen, and many seniors, often snapped while sitting in folding chairs on the sunny side of the sidewalk, as if the public pathway were a corner of their own backyard. Some were known as the “mayors” of their block-—the characters, the ones who told the best stories, the ones you sought out when you wanted to learn the news behind the news. One barkeep he photographed, “mayor” Tom Vezzetti, actually became Mayor of Hoboken in 1985.
Like most photographers, Mike did not set out to create a comprehensive visual record of the city. There are, for example, no photographs of the music scene at Maxwell’s, which was at its height during the late 1970s and 1980s, and there is but one image that attests to the spate of arson that terrified Hoboken’s tenement dwellers during the same period. It is a haunting memorial for the eleven tenants, including seven children, who died in the 1981 fire in the Eldorado on 12th Street.
But in their close observation of textures and absences and the uses of public space, Flanagan’s photographs allow current residents and visitors to reflect upon significant changes, over time, in the life and landscape of Hoboken. The exhibition also includes festival and political posters, t-shirts and video footage from the period, including the critically acclaimed “Delivered Vacant,” Nora Jacobson’s sensitive documentary showing the personal consequences of gentrification.
The most striking changes are visible in his images of the waterfront and of city parks. Hoboken’s young family population had declined by the 1980s, and some of the city’s old school buildings were sold for condominium development. The parks in that period were crumbling and seem nearly abandoned-—barely recognizable compared with the green, equipment-filled spaces that teem with activity today.
The Museum is indebted to the Estate of Michael Flanagan, for sponsoring this exhibition, with additional financial support from: Lizzy Flanagan; Michael Flanagan and Christine Allen; Abigail, Luke and Liam Flanagan; Liz Flanagan and Nancy Wilkinson; Hoboken Improvement Company; Justin Silverman; and Robert Foster; and thanks also to Steven and Lily Zane for their generous donation of Michael Flanagan’s photographs, negatives and slides to the permanent collection of the Hoboken Historical Museum.
Elliot Appel – “Mile Square Colors”
November 6 - December 30, 2016
Elliot Appel has always been interested in capturing the myriad interesting architectural details embedded in the urban landscape. On weekends, and in the margins of his workweek in Midtown Manhattan, he prowls the city’s more colorful neighborhoods, camera in hand, looking for eye-catching subjects. He’s drawn to antiquated doorways and signs, interesting street performers, or an arresting reflection in a window.
“I try to capture the details of everyday life that people may not notice, or take for granted, as they rush from place to place,” Appel says. “I’ve always been a city person. It intensified when all these old structures were being torn down and replaced by new buildings without detail.”
Born and raised in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood, he began drawing as a child and kept on sketching through high school and college. Largely self-taught as an artist, he honed his painting technique and subject matter on trips to Europe in his early twenties, visiting museums in Paris, Geneva, Florence, Milan, Venice, Rome and Athens.
During his travels, he would often pause to sketch scenes in the public squares, capturing the unique character of each space from interesting angles. After he sold one of his acrylic paintings based on a photo of a cathedral, he began working in a more photorealistic style that has come to define his art, with urban life as his most frequent subject.
After moving to Bayonne, he began to explore neighborhoods across Hudson County filled with the same late 19th and early 20th century architectural detail that captivated two of his favorite American painters, Edward Hopper and John Sloan. Many of Appel’s scenes recall Hopper’s crisp, light-flooded canvases of modern, realistic street scenes. He interprets these scenes in vibrant colors, with unusual perspectives, as well as an eye for detail, resulting in a singular view of life in the big city. In general, his paintings take about two to three weeks to complete, depending on the amount of detail involved.
“Practice makes perfect,” he adds. “I like to work without a lot of sketching; I block it out on the canvas and launch into filling in the details, working in acrylics because they allow you to paint quickly.” He usually paints at night, with a daylight simulator lamp, with the full sunlight spectrum, and on weekends, when he’s not out searching for new subject matter. He says he’s looking forward to retiring and having more time to paint.
The artist will exhibit about 15 Hoboken-themed paintings, ranging in size from 16” x 20” to 24” x 36”, in a show titled, “Mile Square Colors: Paintings by Elliot Appel.” The show opens at the Hoboken Historical Museum on Sunday, November 6, with a free reception from 1 – 4 pm, and remains on view through Dec. 30. See more of his work at elliotpaints.com. His work is frequently on view at galleries in New York and New Jersey, as well as street fairs and online shows.
The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.
Donna O’Grady – “Hoboken Scenes”
September 18 – October 18, 2016
While most of us are busy documenting our travels and daily lives with cameras that fit in our pockets, Donna O’Grady carts along a full pochade box, a traditional painter’s supply case with attachable tripod easel, to capture scenes from her travels and her favorite places in her adopted hometown of Hoboken.
She takes her pochade case everywhere: To many of Hoboken’s sidewalk cafes, on business trips around the world as a financial software product manager, on frequent artist workshops in Italy, and even on a boat, where she lived for two years sailing around the Caribbean. She paints to preserve her memories of these places, or sometimes to barter for the catch of the day, painting portraits of fishing boats and their crews in exchange for a hearty meal of fresh scallops.
Like the Impressionists, she paints in oils on location, en plein air, and uses an Old Masters’ technique called underpainting, roughing out the major elements of a composition in dark and light monochromes before applying colors and details. This helps infuse a painting with light and depth, giving them a deeper dimension and a realistic atmosphere. (See examples on her blog, www.donnaogrady.com/blog)
O’Grady has been painting all her life – she can’t remember when she didn’t paint, from her early years in Jersey City and high school years in North Haledon, to her early adult years in Ringwood, NJ. Along the way, she has taken classes at the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts, both in Manhattan. She likes studying with different teachers to learn different techniques and styles, and has taken to listening to podcasts by artists, too.
Her parents, who had worked so hard to be able to move the family out to the suburbs, couldn’t believe it when she chose to move to Hoboken about 14 years ago, but she says she felt an irresistible pull to the Mile Square City.
“I love Hoboken’s architecture, day or night, there’s so much detail,” she raves. “I love the factories, cafés, the train terminal, the waterfront—there’s so much life on the streets of the city.” Her artist’s eye is drawn to interesting details wherever she goes. She quickly sets up her easel and captures the local architecture, landscape and portraits of the people she meets. She even enjoys chatting with strangers while she works.
Hoboken’s architecture has inserted itself even more directly into her paintings lately, as she has begun painting on salvaged antique ceiling tiles made of pressed tin, once ubiquitous in older Hoboken homes and businesses. “My neighbor had bought some at a street fair and she gave me the idea to paint in the flat center area — a perfect painting surface with a built-in frame,” O’Grady says. “Now, I find them at craft fairs and order vintage tiles online – the older the better, with cracked and peeling paint.”
She’s chosen about 12 new works mostly on these tiles for her latest exhibit, “Hoboken Scenes: Paintings on Pressed Tin,” on view from September 18 – October 18 in the Hoboken Historical Museum’s Upper Gallery. O’Grady is an active member of the local hob’art artists gallery, and exhibits her work in shows in Jersey City and Ocean Grove, NJ.
The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.
Bill Curran – “Extraordinary Hoboken”
April 9 - May 29, 2016
When most of us pass a flowerpot in full bloom on a stoop or a cat sunning lazily in a window, we might make a mental note of these moments of unexpected beauty, but they are soon forgotten, buried under a pile of errands and obligations. It takes a special eye to see these fleeting moments of pure color and light as inspiration for great art.
Artist Bill Curran has that kind of eye. He finds subjects for his lushly colorful paintings in his everyday walks through Hoboken, or views from his own window. The less “artfully” arranged the better. Taking a cue from his favorite painter, Fairfield Porter, Curran prefers to happen upon a scene worth painting, rather than intentionally arranging objects.
To explain his penchant for painting flowers, Hoboken stoops, cats, windows, boats and more, he cites a phrase that Porter used to describe the French painter Edouard Vuillard: “It seems to be ordinary, what [he’s] doing, but the extraordinary is everywhere.” When Curran sees something he likes, he will paint it quickly, en plein air, to capture the fleeting moment of pure color and light, sometimes making a sketch on site and finishing the canvas quickly back at his studio. “The feeling of adding lush paint to a rough canvas is incomparable,” he adds.
On Saturday, April 9, with an opening reception from 2 – 5 pm, the Museum is pleased to present Curran’s third Upper Gallery exhibit, “Extraordinary Hoboken,” comprising 64 small-format oil paintings of a stunning variety of subjects, painted between 1999 and 2016. Regular visitors to the Museum will know Curran as the unfailingly nice Museum Associate who greets guests and keeps operations humming at the Museum and the Fire Department Museum. On view through May 29, the paintings are as delightful as the artist!
Before coming to work for the Hoboken Museum, Curran was an illustrator and art director for 16 years at Lord & Taylor in New York. He also teaches private art lessons and classes at the Bayonne Jewish Community Center. His work has been widely exhibited at venues in New York and New Jersey, including Hoboken City Hall, Hoboken Library and even in the Empire State Building, which used to captivate him from his vantage point at Lord & Taylor, and continues to draw his eye from the Hoboken waterfront.
Curran honed his technique through years of study at The Art Institute in Fort Lauderdale, as well as New York’s School of Visual Arts, the Fashion Institute of Technology, Parsons School of Design and the Art Students League. But perhaps the most profound influence was an invitation to join Fairfield Porter’s niece, Anina Porter Fuller, and 12 other artists for a painting retreat at the family’s 100-year-old estate on Great Spruce Head Island, Maine, in 2013.
Originally born in Brooklyn, NY, and raised on Long Island, Curran has lived in Hoboken for thirty-two years. View more of his work online at billcurran.net.
The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.
Alex Morales – “Watercolor Paintings”
January 10 - February 14, 2016
The Uruguayan artist Alex Morales has been making art in a wide range of media from an early age, studying and refining his skills at the Museum of Fine Arts in the state of San Jose de Mayo in his home country. He earned a living in Uruguay and Buenos Aires as a successful illustrator, graphic artist, set designer and muralist before moving to the United States about nine years ago. He settled in the New York/New Jersey area, and about three years ago met a woman named Pilar in Hoboken. They fell in love, and have since married, and along the way, he fell in love with Hoboken.
“I like Hoboken because of the people and the small-town feel,” he says. “It is a very open community, a small town that offers a blend of youth and joy with elegance and maturity. The community is very vibrant and friendly.” As an artist, he is drawn to Hoboken’s architecture, and its piers and marina, as well as the mesmerizing views of the New York City skyline across the river. He can sense that the people who live here are proud of their city, and he was inspired to give them a chance to see it through his artistic interpretation.
For his six-week exhibition in the Hoboken Museum’s Upper Gallery, Morales has assembled about 15 recent paintings executed in water-based media, some in traditional watercolor and some elaborated in ink and lemon juice. They are realist works, with elements of abstraction and meticulously detailed work with a fountain pen.
Morales earned a reputation in Uruguay as a sought-after decorator for dance clubs and pubs, and today he continues to earn commissions creating art for commercial spaces, such as the large-scale mosaic mural, “Life,” that he created recently for the Orama Restaurant in Edgewater, NJ. The massive, 1,150-square-foot mural and other artistic elements adorning the restaurant took the artist the better part of 2013 and half of 2014 to realize. This year, he plans to offer private art classes, specifically drawing and painting.
Throughout his career, he has continued to produce fine art, exhibiting his work in solo and group shows in galleries and public spaces. “My next exhibition will be of small sculptures representing the most characteristic places of Hoboken,” Morales says. “These will be replicas in yeso (plaster) of the buildings and homes showing the architecture of this town.” The first of these pieces will be on view during his exhibit at the Hoboken Historical Museum, through Sunday, February 14. Learn more at the artist’s website: http://www.ajmorales.com
The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.
Frank Sinatra Centennial
August 2, 2015 – July 3, 2016
Frank Sinatra: The Man, the Voice, and the Fans
Honoring the 100th anniversary of the birth of Hoboken’s most famous native son, the exhibition, “Frank Sinatra: The Man, the Voice, and the Fans,” will open on Sunday, Aug. 2, with a free opening reception from 2 – 5 p.m. The exhibit will feature interactive displays and videos, period-appropriate listening stations, and cherished fan photographs and artifacts to illustrate the singer/actor’s formative years in Hoboken, highlights from his remarkable 60-year career, and memories from legions of fans. The exhibit will be accompanied by packed schedule of singers, films and authors, and a big birthday bash on Dec. 12, 2015.
Sinatra was, as writer Bruce Bliven put it, “a kid from Hoboken who got the breaks.” He emerged from a blue-collar, working class, urban setting, where most guys, he once told an audience, became fighters or worked in factories. His own father, Martin, a recent immigrant from Sicily, started out as a boxer, fighting under the assumed name of Marty O’Brien to gain access to Irish-controlled gyms that wouldn’t admit Italians.
Though he was born in a cold-water flat in a neighborhood of newly arrived immigrants in Southwest Hoboken, his life wasn’t as rough as some biographers have portrayed. He was a rare only child, whose mother, Dolly, used her political savvy and facility with languages to improve her family’s station, securing Marty a position with the city’s fire department. By the time he was 12, the Sinatras had moved to better housing and he earned the derisive nickname of “Slacksy O’Brien” for the dress pants he sported. In the 1920s and 30s, Hoboken was bursting with young singers who performed on street corners, in pool halls and clubs, and in private homes–wherever they could get an audience.
His big break came in 1935, when a Hoboken trio calling themselves the Three Flashes invited him to join them for a shot at the American Idol program of its day, the radio program, “Major Bowes and His Original Amateur Hour.” The Hoboken Four were a hit, and went on a tour sponsored by the radio program for the next several months. Then Sinatra went solo, performing at the Rustic Cabin in Englewood, NJ, which was broadcast on WNEW’s radio program, Dance Parade, leading to an invitation to join the nationally popular Harry James band. In 1939, he joined the Tommy Dorsey band and soon earned the name “Swoonatra,” for causing teenage girls to faint at his concerts.
He would go on to sell more records than any previous singer, and also to pursue a successful Hollywood film career, including an Oscar-winning performance in “From Here to Eternity.” He and his pals in the “Rat Pack” defined the image of American cool in the 1950s and 60s, and he continued to tour and record successful records into his later years. When he died in 1998, fans swarmed Hoboken to mourn the man whose music and movies had meant so much to them.
Judy Schmitt – “Capturing Hoboken”
May 10 - July 5, 2015
The accomplished artist Judy Schmitt may be based in Cape Cod, but since her daughter and son-in-law moved to Hoboken 15 years ago, this city has been a second home for her. Inspired by the artistic tradition of Provincetown, Mass., and many of the experienced artists who live there, Schmitt strives to capture the soul of her subjects in her paintings. She will exhibit 14 of them in the Museum’s Upper Gallery from May 10 to July 5.
Schmitt grew up in the blue collar town of Waterbury, CT, so she appreciates the hidden beauty of the many factory buildings tucked into Hoboken’s cityscape. She is enamored of the beauty and sounds of Hoboken, which she soaks in on walks through the city, or while visiting its parks with her grandchildren. She loves the way the light bounces off the brownstones, and imagines the voices of the families who grew up in them. Her goal is to portray each building’s individual character and charm, using a rich palette of Veneitan red and burnt sienna.
She starts the paintings in plein air, on the street, taking color notes for the trees, the different red-browns of the bricks and grays of the sidewalks, and finishes the canvases in her studio.
“A major influence was Edward Hopper, who lived and painted in my town,” she says, “and I learned about capturing the light, from my mentor, Steve Kennedy, a wonderful plein air artist.”
Living near the sea in New England, Schmitt is especially sensitive to Hoboken’s waterfront and its rich shipping history. She was so struck by the image of an old pier with the “Hoboken” tugboat, that she felt compelled to use a large canvas to convey the scene in all its rich detail, with the New York skyline in the background.
The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.
Walter Barco – “Litopintura”
March 22 - May 3, 2015
Ecuadoran artist Walter Barco creates extraordinary “rock-works” that evoke nostalgic memories of his native Guayaquil’s colonial architecture and 19th century homes, using a technique he describes as “la litopintura,” or stone-painting. With incredibly fine detail, including tiny figures in the windows of these three-dimensional paintings, he brings 12 of these miniature buildings to the Museum’s Upper Gallery for a unique exhibit from March 22 to May 3.
Working with the natural contours of the stone, Barco recreates the buildings’ walls of mud-and-straw (adobe), which are traditionally painted white, or sometimes structures made of wood and painted in pastel colors of pink, yellow, or blue. They are adorned with wooden balconies, porches, doors and windows.
This mini-village is mounted on revolving turntables so visitors can take in the full dimensionality of these amazing works of art.
The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.
Kids Map Hoboken Artwork
January 25 - March 15, 2015
Hoboken is a kid-friendly city — just ask a kid! We asked hundreds of children who visited the Museum with their school groups, scout troops and Family Fun Day participants to list their favorite places in town, and the result is the third edition of our popular “Kids Map Hoboken.” Some of their favorite places are illustrated with original artwork by local children, many of which will be on display in the Upper Gallery of the Museum from January 25 through March 15, 2015.
The new edition of the map was created with the support of a generous grant from the group Party With Purpose, under the direction of the Museum’s education curator, Razel Solow, and designed by graphic artist Claire Lukacs.
The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.
The Extraordinary Stevens Family, A New Jersey Legacy: 1776-1911
January 25 – July 5, 2015
Click here to take an interactive virtual tour
“The Extraordinary Stevens Family, A New Jersey Legacy: 1776-1911” detailed the lives and careers of two generations of the family The New York Times referred to as “one of New Jersey’s first families.” The Stevenses were inventors and designers, engineers and urban planners, and their influence is still very much felt, and seen, in Hoboken, and across the nation.
In addition to planning the city of Hoboken, and building many of the town’s major landmarks (Hoboken Land and Improvement Building, Willow Terraces, and Church of the Holy Innocents), and donating land for important institutions such as City Hall and the Hoboken Free Public Library, Colonel John Stevens III, along with his sons Robert Livingston, Edwin Augustus, and John Cox, made major contributions in the areas of steam transportation, railroads, architecture, and education.
Working with archivists and researchers from Stevens Institute of Technology, the first engineering school in the United States that was founded by Edwin Stevens’ estate, the exhibit featured patent models, military uniforms, maps, photos, 19th century furniture and personal family items from the family estate in Hoboken known as Castle Stevens. The museum also displayed original documents from the Stevens Institute of Technology collection, including correspondence with Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, James Madison, Robert Fulton, Richard Stockton, and many other historic figures. Many of these artifacts have never been seen by the public. The Stevens family were very politically astute and their descendants married into some of the most influential families in the country. The family corresponded with presidents and entertained royalty.
The Stevenses were also slaveholders, and the exhibit lecture series will feature a talk about Peter Lee, a former slave who was with the family from 1804 until his death in 1902, when flags were flown at half-mast at Castle Stevens to honor his passing. He was considered a part of the family and is buried in the Stevens family plot. In addition, the time period for this exhibit (mid-1700s through 1900) provides the Museum with a rare opportunity to explore 18th century life in New Jersey.
While the Stevenses’ legacy can be clearly seen and felt in Hoboken, it is their contributions to New Jersey and the nation that will be the focus of this exhibit. Colonel Stevens and his sons were forward-thinking inventors and their innovative designs were adapted by shipbuilders and railway companies across the country. Robert Livingston Stevens, the Colonel’s middle son, revolutionized how trains were built and operated with his invention of the t-rail and spike, still in use today. Father and son were also interested in using steam to power railroads, and in 1826 the Colonel had a track built on his property in Hoboken so he could experiment with a steam locomotive driven by a multi-tubular boiler that carried passengers around the track at 12 miles an hour. This was the first engine and train that ever ran on a railroad in America.
The land that is now Hoboken had been confiscated by the State of New Jersey from a British loyalist and was won in an auction by Colonel John Stevens III, a revolutionary war hero from Perth Amboy, N.J., for $90,000 in 1784. In order to make Hoboken more appealing to homesteaders, Col. Stevens developed Hoboken as a pastoral getaway for New Yorkers weary of the dirty city. Open meadows, walkways along the river, inns, the “natural spring waters” of Sybil’s Cave, were all designed to entice buyers to purchase plots in the newly laid out community. These plots sold slowly at first, even with the added bonus of advertising Hoboken as being free of “yellow fever,” but after Col. Stevens established the Hoboken Ferry Company, with steam-powered ferries making regular trips between Manhattan and Hoboken, the town began to fill with the area’s first commuters.
The Stevens women were equally progressive-minded contributors to the betterment of society. Martha Bayard Dod Stevens, wife of Edwin Augustus and a descendent of the British loyalist who lost the land that Colonel Stevens won at auction, has contributed as much as any of her in-laws. It is probably Martha Stevens whose influence is most felt in Hoboken. Her interests in education, housing for laborers, and opportunities for working women, drove her to establish a foundling hospital, Holy Innocents Church, the Hoboken Free Public Library (National Register of Historic Places), and an industrial training school for young women and men. In addition, as a result of a trip to the Scottish village of New Lanark, a community founded by utopian social reformer Robert Owen, whose clean, affordable housing for workers inspired Mrs. Stevens to commission similar housing at the Willow Terraces in Hoboken. Widowed at age 37, she was left to carry out her husband’s wishes for a school of higher learning to be built on the family property. It was in honor of her family’s innovative natures that she chose to build a school of engineering.