"Fishing Shack" by Marilyn Dunphy will be on display in the Old Lyme Library's exhibition opening Friday.

“LymeScapes,” an exhibition featuring three artists whose plein air oil paintings capture the beauty of the historic shore and countryside, will be on view at the Old Lyme-Phoebe Griffin Noyes (OL-PGN) Library from Oct. 23 through Dec.12.  
 

“LymeScapes” artists include Nancy Armstrong of Killingworth, Teddi Curtiss, Old Lyme, and Marilyn Dunphy, Niantic.  Their images capture such familiar scenes as the Connecticut and Lieutenant Rivers, Griswold Point and Ashlawn Farm, among others.  This is the fourth. exhibition this year in which artists donate a portion of proceeds from the sale of art to the Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library, according to Mary Fiorelli, director. 

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Nancy Armstrong began formal art studies as a teenager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  Her earliest memories, she said, are of making elaborate drawings on the beginning and end pages of her books (allowed and irresistible, she notes).  Art has since been her main life focus, she adds.  Although she is interested in painting all subjects – figure, still life, she has recently concentrated on plein air landscapes.

 

She has a BS degree in Art Education from Wilkes College and an MALS degree in art and literature from Wesleyan University.  She also has studied with a number of local instructors.  Her work has been exhibited locally and is in numerous private collections.  For many years she has served as a docent at the Yale Center for British Art, a role she finds “stimulating and a continuing inspiration.”


"Sailing Home" by Teddi Curtiss is another painting featured in the exhibition.

 

Teddi Curtiss  taught art at summer camp as a high school student.  She holds a BS from Wheelock College where she minored in art, art history and childhood education.  She studied art history at Boston College and the University of Colorado. She has also studied with many local artists and participated in workshops in Maine and Massachusetts.  Her work is in private collections throughout New England and has been featured at the Kevin Butler Gallery in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard. 

Curtiss concentrates on plein air painting, drawing most of her subject matter from Connecticut farmlands and countryside.  She and her husband, are avid sailors so she also finds appealing scenes in the New England marine and coastal areas and as well as those in the British Virgin Islands.
 

Marilyn Dunphy is a graduate of Connecticut College and has studied painting with numerous artists in Connecticut, Florida and Rhode Island.  “I enjoy painting outdoors whenever possible because the colors seem more vivid, the scene becomes alive with fragrances and movement and the painting seems to depict that,” she explained. 

Dunphy notes, “One must be very stalwart to paint in plein air in some seasons in New England and I find that on those days, I like the warmth and comfort of my studio with some wonderful classical music in the background.”  American Impressionists are her favorite artists and inspiration.  She feels it a privilege to live in an area where great painters have lived and worked and where “people appreciate and celebrate art.”


Another of Marilyn Dunphy's paintings in the exhibition is "View from Lyme."

 

All three artists have studied at Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in the Continuing Education program.  They are all Associate Artist members of Lyme Art Association where they have been active for many years, contributing their volunteer efforts as well as exhibiting their work.

 

The Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library, which was founded in 1897, has enjoyed a long relationship with artists, noted Mary Fiorelli. When Henry Ward Ranger and other early Impressionists discovered the Old Lyme landscape, they spent summers at Miss Florence Griwold’s home but were unable to show their work.  The Library came to their rescue in 1902, offering them exhibition space.  The Library actually become the first gallery in Old Lyme.

 

“The Library suspended lending for three weeks to allow artists such as Ranger, William Howe and Clark Voorhees, to display and sell their art to the public,” OL-PGN Library Director Mary Fiorelli explained.  “Many of the artists also donated paintings to the Library that have become the permanent art collection now displayed in our historic reading room.”

 

Those exhibitions became a very successful summer tradition which helped put Old Lyme on the map as an art colony.  The Library hosted exhibitions until 1920.  The artists who had formed the Lyme Art Association in 1914, opened their own gallery in 1921 in a building designed by Charles A. Platt at 90 Lyme St., which is still their home.

 

After a long hiatus the Phoebe Grifffin Noyes Library reintroduced art exhibitions into its community programming during the winter of 1998-99, Ms. Fiorelli said.  Plans are to continue the quarterly exhibitions in 2010.

 

The Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library is located at 2 Library Lane, off Lyme Street, Old Lyme.  Library hours are Monday and Wednesday, 10 am to 7 pm; Tuesday and Thursday, 10 am to 6 pm; Friday, 10 am to 5 pm and Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm.

For more information call 860-434-1684 or visit www.oldlyme.lioninc.org