Any picturesque place you visit is defined as much by the people who call it home as it is by the landscape.
In Greenport, painter Whitney Hubbard and his wife, pianist and organist Ruth Hubbard, were known about town for their kindness and the way they shared their skills and talents with the community.
Pictured Above: Whitney Hubbard’s “Afternoon Light,” one of his few titled works.
A century-and-a-half after Whitney Hubbard’s birth, his work is known far and wide for its inventive impressionism, new to the United States in Hubbard’s time, which inspired a school of artists here now known as the Peconic Bay Impressionists.
His small works hang proudly in many Greenport residents’ homes, says Sally Grant, curator of art exhibitions at Greenport’s Floyd Memorial Library, which in September launched a celebration of Hubbard’s work: “Whitney M. Hubbard: 150 Years.”
Since Ms Grant began working on the exhibition earlier this year, along with Adult Services Coordinator Janet Olinkiewicz and Local History Librarian Christopher Bianchi, Greenport residents have shared their tales with the library staff about the Whitney Hubbard paintings they have in their own homes.
The library is now inviting the community to come to a “Hubbard Appreciation Day” on the afternoon of Saturday, Oct. 25, for tea and music in the gallery. Attendees are invited to bring Whitney Hubbard works to share with the community.
The tea will be accompanied on the piano by composer and Greenport arts district pioneer George Cork Maul, the former proprietor of The Werkshop recording studio (now VSOP Projects), who was active in Greenport’s First Night cultural events in the early 2000s. (editor’s note: Mr. Maul also serves as the Creative Director for the East End Beacon).
On Hubbard Appreciation Day, the exhibition will be open for viewing from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a curator’s tour at 1 p.m., open discussion and an invite to the community to share their Whitney Hubbard artworks at 2 p.m. and afternoon tea and music at 3 p.m.
The music will be inspired by an archival program from a recital of organ music at the Utica Grace Episcopal Church “dedicated to our honored guests, Whitney and Ruth Hubbard.”
No More Obscurity
The last major exhibition of Whitney Hubbard’s work was in the year 2000, in Greenport and at the Museums at Stony Brook. Helen Harrison’s New York Times review of that show was titled “Greenport Painter’s Art Spared from Obscurity.”
“It feels like he’s slipping into obscurity again — he hasn’t had a major show in 25 years, and lots of people just don’t really seem to know too much about him,” said Ms. Grant. “We hope with this show that we really help bring new attention to his work, because he deserves it.”
Finding out that this year was the 150th anniversary of Whitney Hubbard’s birth gave the library staff extra impetus to follow through with the project.
This month’s festivities aren’t the first Hubbard Appreciation Day to be held in Greenport — the village held another Hubbard Appreciation Day in 1951, which Ms. Grant said was held to honor both Whitney and Ruth.
The Hubbards taught art and music in their First Street home in the early 20th Century, inspiring young artists and musicians throughout the North Fork.
“Ruth was a really accomplished musician. Supposedly, she brought a choir to Carnegie Hall and a choir she taught performed at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York,” said Ms. Grant. “Someone called her a musical force in the village. She played piano, she played the organ, and she taught piano and vocal coaching, and she would put on musicals.”
“You may think, it’s great, we’re drawing attention to a woman, which is always good, but I think it’s also that, because she’s a musician, her works are obviously more ephemeral,” she added. “I think it’s just the nature of her artwork. They made recordings of her work but I haven’t come across any.”
Images of Ms. Hubbard, born Ruth Antoinette Langloi, do live on in her husband’s work — she was his frequent muse and model and several portraits in the show are believed to be of her.
Rallying Around a Hometown Hero
From the start, this project has been a community effort, spurred on by a collaboration with the Greenport School, which has several large Hubbard paintings. One of the school’s paintings, on view now in the foyer of the library, was purchased by the 1951 senior class during the first Hubbard Appreciation Day and donated to the school.
Former Greenport Mayor David Kapell, who was mayor during the 2000 shows, also loaned a painting, as well as Paul and Christina Dinizio. Stan Boyd, who now lives in the Hubbard’s First Street home, loaned a portion of his large collection and the Stirling, Oysterponds and Southold historical societies also contributed paintings to the show.
“He was quite prodigious, so I’m sure there are a lot of them around town,” said Ms. Grant of Hubbard’s paintings.
Born in 1875 in Middletown, Conn., Whitney Hubbard’s family moved to Greenport when he was a child. His father took a job at the Sage Brickworks, eventually becoming a manager. The painter lived in Greenport until his death in 1965.
While Hubbard was prodigious, he and Ruth often struggled for money, especially during the great depression. Many of the paintings in the show from that time used unusual materials — the back of a Necco Wafers candy box, boards and the back cover of one of Ruth’s books, “Anniversary of Fine Organ Building.” He was also known to have painted on lampshades.
But the quality of the light in this space provided sustenance and inspiration in hard times.
His paintings depicting light on the water are also fine examples of impressionistic detail — blotches of precise color that seem one hue when viewed up close and then take on the spectrum of late afternoon light when viewed from afar.
Whitney Hubbard rarely titled his works, but one large work from 1924, of a sailboat in Greenport Harbor, is titled just that: “Afternoon Sunlight.”
Chasing a Fleeting Moment
“He’s what’s known now as a “second generation American impressionist, a number of years after it started in France,” said Ms. Grant. “Hubbard and other Americans are inspired by what they see in France.”
“Just as the impressionists were trying to capture a fleeting moment in time, that’s what he’s doing here in Greenport,” she said. “it’s really lovely. There are these little brush strokes — if you look closely, there’s definitely lilac in there, but if you step back, it reads as quite blue.”
In an oral history accompanying the exhibition collected by Hallockville Museum Farm, one of Hubbard’s students, Florence Kramer, recounted how, when painting the view of houses across the street from the front room of the First Street studio on a cold day, her teacher had asked her if the white houses she was painting were really truly white — asking her to look more closely to see their true colors.
Whitney Hubbard was deep into his career as an artist when the world was shocked by the seminal 1913 Armory Show of new cubist work in New York, and while Mr. Hubbard “was quite conservative, he wasn’t to sure about experimental modern work, he did experiment,” said Ms. Grant.
One mixed media piece in the show, which seems to include pen and pencil on a board, is a realistic portrait of a woman looking up a hill that evokes the American regionalism style of the 1930s.
“It has a storytelling quality to it — People were looking to the rural, agricultural midwest as symbolic of real American values, and it gave people hope,” said Ms. Grant.
A Conversation Across the Generations
As Whitney and Ruth Hubbard inspired the community during their lifetime, they are also inspiring artists working in Greenport today. The library invited artists Jeff Lee and Alma Vasquez to contribute works to the show, referencing Hubbard’s paintings.
Mr. Lee, who is in his 60s, chose to respond to two of Hubbard’s self portraits —both as a young and older man.
In the youthful self-portrait, Mr. Lee created a painting depicting his own confidence and youthful swagger, but when picking Hubbard’s older portrait, in which the artist turned away from the viewer, Mr. Lee chose instead “to confront the viewer. To turn away would be to retreat from the challenge.”
Ms. Vazquez, who is from El Salvador, paints in a folk art technique using smooth, flat, bright and bold brush strokes.
“In this style of folk art, the subject matter is very common, just like in Hubbard’s work — scenes of village life and scenes of nature,” said Ms. Grant. “I love the contrast and comparison, and the idea of connecting to historic art, of having this conversation across the generations.”
“We talk about Ruth and Whitney being a part of the historic and cultural fabric of village. This is a way of connecting them to the contemporary art scene,” she added. “From all the reports, they sound like they were a really nice couple. It sounded like he was the quieter one, and she was a little more animated, but a bit of a character as well.”
Mr. Maul, the composer who will be performing at Hubbard Appreciation Day, says he took inspiration for his performance from the program for a concert dedicated to the Hubbards, which included a tantalizing introduction of a new Baldwin electric organ.
In the spirit of the conversation across the generations, he will be performing both on the library’s piano, and on an organ synthesizer, capable of reproducing an exact replica of a Baldwin electric organ, and other sounds, with a precision unheard of in the Hubbards’ day.
“I love the idea of using this program from the past to write music for the future,” said Mr. Maul. “I find the line on the program ‘Please do not applaud’ particularly intriguing.”
“Like the impressionists, musicians are always chasing a fleeting moment in time,” he added.
Hubbard Appreciation Day will be held on Saturday, Oct. 25 at the Floyd Memorial Library, 511 First Street, Greenport. The exhibition is on view through Nov. 10. For more details, visit floydmemoriallibrary.org.
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