FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Caroline Welsh
Blue Mountain Lake, NY
518-352-7311, Ext. 133
January, 2006
FAMILY DONATES 1878 “ORDWAY HOUSE” PAINTING
TO THE ADIRONDACK MUSEUM AT BLUE MOUNTAIN LAKE
_
BLUE MOUNTAIN LAKE, N.Y. – A
nineteenth century painting has returned to the hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake –
it’s place of origin -- thanks to a generous donation to the Adirondack Museum.
A promising young painter, Levi Wells Prentice of Syracuse,
traveled to the Adirondack Mountains in the 1870s and filled sketchbooks with
images of hostelries and landscapes around Blue Mountain Lake. He recorded in
pencil and paint a brief period of history before these humble establishments
were transformed into grander ones made famous by their Gilded Age patrons.
Prentice typically created
paintings from his Adirondack sketches in his Syracuse studio. His fourth trip
to the Adirondacks, in 1877, captured the essence of a young summer resort
community with paintings such as Blue Mountain House, Adirondacks, Blue
Mountain Lake, Adirondacks from Merwin’s, and Blue Mountain Lake with Ordway House. It is
believed that the 15-by-24-inch oil-on-canvas painting of the Ordway House was
first sketched on the hill overlooking the lake, just south of The Adirondack
Museum, which was built on the former site of Miles Tyler Merwin’s Blue
Mountain House.
Donald Jones, descendant of
Mary Ordway, proprietress of the Ordway House, and his wife, Anna, of West
Pawlet, Vermont, recently donated Blue Mountain Lake with Ordway House in its
original 21-by-30-inch gold-leaf-surfaced, gesso-molded, decorated frame to The
Adirondack Museum.
The painting features a
bird’s-eye view of the Ordway House property as it was seen on Blue Mountain
Lake’s Prospect Point in 1877. There are two guideboats plying through the
placid water and a pair of hunters in a guideboat chasing after a white-tailed
deer that is swimming toward the three-story hotel. The artist’s signature is
in the lower right corner.
In 1877, James and Mary Ordway built the Ordway House, also known as
the American Hotel. They sold the property in 1879 to Frederick C. Durant, who
operated the hotel for its final season in 1880. He had the porch razed in the
spring of 1881, and the structure was then added to the back end of his newly
built six-story T-shaped hotel, the Prospect House. The Ordways owned the
Prentice painting until 1915, when Mary Ordway gave it to her grandniece,
Marjorie L. Jones, as a high school graduation gift. Jones handed it down to
her son and daughter-in-law, David and Anna, in 1982.
Blue Mountain Lake with
Ordway House was on display in 1993 during the Adirondack Museum’s exhibition
on the artist, Levi Wells Prentice, titled, “Nature Staged.” Otherwise, it has
been in the possession of the Ordway/Jones family since it was created.
~~~~~~~
Levi Wells Prentice
(1851-1935) was born in the Lewis County hamlet of Harrisburgh. At an early
age, he and his family moved to the village of Copenhagen and later relocated
to the city of Syracuse, where his self-taught career as a painter began. While
living in Syracuse from 1870 to 1879, he made several trips to the Adirondack
Mountains and quickly established himself as one of the most talented and
prolific Adirondack artists of his time.
~~~~~~~
The Adirondack Museum, a
private not-for-profit organization, opens for its 49th consecutive season on
Friday, May 26. For more information on exhibits and special events, please
call (518) 352-7311 or visit www.AdirondackMuseum.org.
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