The Byrdcliffe Colony, also called the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony or Byrdcliffe Historic District, was founded in 1902 near

Woodstock, New York Woodstock is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, New York, Kingston. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The popula ...

by Jane Byrd McCall and Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and colleagues, Bolton Brown (artist) and Hervey White (writer). It is the oldest operating arts and crafts colony in America. The

Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

arose in the late nineteenth century in reaction to the dehumanizing monotony and standardization of industrial production. Byrdcliffe was created as an experiment in utopian living inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement. The colony is still in operation today and is located on with 35 original buildings, all designed in the Arts and Crafts style. There is a self-guided walking tour through the compound as well as a hiking path that leads to the mountain top which gives way to scenic Catskill views. Along with ongoing music, theater and art performances held in the Byrdcliffe Theater, Barn and on property lawns, The Byrdcliffe Colony hosts an Artist-In-Residence program that houses over 70 artists each summer who practice in a wide variety of fields and media. The program accepts writers, composers, and visual artists. Byrdcliffe maintains an exhibition and performance space in the heart of Woodstock, the Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, which hosts 6 or 7 exhibitions of primarily contemporary art annually.

Location

Woodstock is surrounded by the

Catskill Mountains The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined a ...

New York State New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...

. The entire Byrdcliffe estate lay on on the south-facing side of Mount Guardian, just above Woodstock. This location provides the rustic landscape meant to inspire and elevate the art community. Additionally, Woodstock offers close proximity to the art and culture of New York City and was home to well-known painters like

Milton Avery Milton Clark Avery (; March 7, 1885 – January 3, 1965Haskell, B. (2003). "Avery, Milton". Grove Art Online.) was an American Modern art, modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City. He wa ...

and Philip Guston.

History

For many years, Whitehead held the idea of creating an Arts and Crafts community where all the arts would come together, including painting, sculpture, music, metalwork, and furniture making. After a failed attempt to establish a community near

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara (, meaning ) is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting A ...

and

Albany, Oregon Albany ( ) is the county seat of Linn County, Oregon, and is the 11th most populous city in the state. Albany is located in the Willamette Valley at the confluence of the Calapooia River and the Willamette River in both Linn and Benton count ...

, he scouted the East Coast for a suitable site, sending painter and lithographer Bolton Brown on a three-week excursion through the Hudson Valley, where he would select Woodstock, New York, and begin construction.Murphy, John. "Athletic Aesthetics: Art, Craft and Bolton Brown," ''Art in Print'' Vol. 7 No. 2 (July–August 2017). The Byrdcliffe Arts Colony received its name as a combination of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead's middle name and his wife's, Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead, middle name. Artists, writers, musicians, social reformers, and intellectuals came from across the country to stay at Byrdcliffe and gain inspiration from the setting and people with shared artistic goals. Facilities included studios for painting, weaving, pottery, metalwork, woodworking; cottages with bathrooms and sleeping porches; a library, and a rambling villa for Whitehead and his family. He built "White Pines" as his residence with a skylit cathedral ceilinged weaving room overlooking a picturesque view across the Woodstock Valley. Writer Hervey White had been an early founder and worker at Byrdcliffe Colony and he was one of the first to leave and start a new, nearby colony independently. The Byrdcliffe Colony had been "well-financed and run somewhat autocratically" with a strong sense of designing and planning a legacy, while Maverick Artist Colony was more "scruffier, more truly communal and anarchic". The artist colony of Byrdcliffe failed to fulfill its goals as a self-sufficient arts community. It became too expensive, and Ralph Whitehead's dominating personality became a confining force. Byrdcliffe survived for almost 30 years under Whitehead's vision until his death in 1929. After Ralph Whitehead's death in 1929, his widow, Jane, and son Peter struggled to keep the colony alive. After Jane's death in 1955, Peter sold much of the land to pay taxes and maintenance on the heart of the colony which he kept intact. The Whiteheads intended to preserve Byrdcliffe "for the purpose of promoting among the residents of Woodstock...the study, practice and development of skill in the fine arts and crafts, as well as a true appreciation thereof..." Although the

arts and crafts The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

utopian experiment soon ran out of steam, the continuing magic of Byrdcliffe enthralled many notable people including the educator

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and Education reform, educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. The overridi ...

, author

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

and naturalist

John Burroughs John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921) was an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the conservation movement in the United States. The first of his essay collections was ''Wake-Robin'' in 1871. In the words of his bi ...

Isadora Duncan Angela Isadora Duncan (May 26, 1877, or May 27, 1878 – September 14, 1927) was an American-born dancer and choreographer, who was a pioneer of modern contemporary dance and performed to great acclaim throughout Europe and the United States. Bor ...

danced at White Pines;

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

lived in a house at Byrdcliffe in the '60s and early '70s;

Joanne Woodward Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American retired actress. She made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a characteristic nuance and depth of character. ...

was involved in the River Arts Repertory at the Byrdcliffe Theatre.

Artist in Residence program

The Artist in Residence program has operated at Byrdcliffe for approximately 20 years and now hosts over 75 artists throughout four summer sessions. Artists live either in two large communal buildings, or in independent cottages, fostering a creative community as originally intended by the founders. There are numerous large work spaces and studios in multiple buildings on the property. The program sees an especially large influx of practicing visual artists, as well as published writers, college professors and professional composers, looking for retreat time to concentrate on their work. Facilities open for use by Byrdcliffe artists are a ceramics studio, jewelry making studio, darkroom, and large performance spaces such as the Byrdcliffe Theater and the Barn. Composers work in a small studio with a 1905 Steinway upright piano.

Merger with Woodstock Guild of Craftsmen

Upon Peter Whitehead's death in 1975, Byrdcliffe was left to the Woodstock Guild of Craftsmen which has continued to maintain and administer programs at the colony. In 1979, the Byrdcliffe Historic District was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in recognition of its historical and architectural significance. Byrdcliffe's cottages have been rented since 1984 only to working artists, maintaining sympathy with the founder's creative vision.

Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild

Byrdcliffe is now owned by the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild (WBG), a non-profit multi-arts organization with over 600 members. WBG's Kleinert/James Center for the Arts hosts local and national performing, visual, and literary artists. The WBG offers a variety of classes in the arts.

References

Sources

* Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony, Nancy E. Green, Editor, 2004

External links

Official Site
Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild

- Overview of the collection on the Byrdcliffe colony {{Authority control Artist colonies Populated places established in 1902 Arts and Crafts movement Utopian communities in New York (state) American artist groups and collectives National Register of Historic Places in Ulster County, New York Woodstock, New York Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)