Friends of the Library

Past Exhibits

The Brewery Boys: Franklin Perrell and Glen Hansen

June 2024

The Brewery Boys started as a weekly gathering of North Fork artists, taking its irreverent name from the Bowery Boys feature films. Gender was irrelevant and just showing up made you a member, but the collective talents have evoked comparison to the art colonies of the 1950s. This exhibition reprises such provocative exhibitions as Detours, The Cheeseball Show, and All About Bob, in which these artists participated.

Dark Matter: Artworks by Sherry Davis and Cathleen Ficht

March 2024

Sherry Davis is exhibiting a site-specific installation that blends recycled and modified textiles, industrial materials, and natural objects. Cathleen Ficht’s works on paper are based on her finely detailed drawings of waves and water; depicting images that hover between representation and abstraction.

In the Mind's Eye: Works by Glenn McNab, Martine Abitbol, and Gabriella Picone

December 2023

The Upstairs gallery is pleased to present the works of Glenn McNab, Martine Abitbol, and Gabriella Picone. McNab is a renowned ceramicist specializing in Raku firing whose pieces often combine with found objects. Abitbol and Picone have distinct visual languages, but both artists employ bold colors and expressive lines in their depictions of the natural world or classically inspired subject matter.

Paul Kreiling: "Paul Kreiling and the Art of Sailing"

September 2023 – November 2023

The Friends of the Library are pleased to present artist, Paul Kreiling.

Summer Group Show

June 2023 – August 2023

The Friends of the Library are pleased to present a summer group show of artists whose works create a dialogue with the natural world and landscapes through subject matter or integration into the library gardens.

The artists include Sherry Davis, Anthony Holbrooke, Cheryl Molnar, Wendy Small, and Agathe Snow. All of the artists either live on the North Fork or spend a significant amount of time in the area.

Anita Samuels: A Life's Work

March 11th, 2023 – May 27th, 2023

Anita Samuels, Cutchogue resident, has created an extensive body of oil, watercolor, and collage media throughout her 60 years of studio practice. Largely self-taught, her watercolor paintings and oil landscapes exhibit a sophisticated understanding of color and a dynamic sense of composition. Her depictions of the North Fork have a degree of abstraction that render them feeling familiar, yet often unspecific. Anita’s studio practice was extensive and diverse as she experimented with techniques such as mushroom spore printing and collage. Her work was shown at many Long Island venues including the Parrish Art Museum and the Guild Hall, where she took first prize for oil painting in 1973 – 50 years ago!

Also exhibited will be architectonic clay sculptures by her son, Tom Samuels. Tom Samuels is a prolific and respected architect who is a co-founder of Samuels and Steelman Architects in Cutchogue.

"Artists & Curators"

January 11th, 2023 – March 7th, 2023

The Upstairs Gallery at the Cutchogue New Suffolk Free Library is pleased to present an exhibition of oil paintings by Adelaide Amend and Ann McCaughey opening on January 11th and running daily through March 7th, 2023. Not only are they accomplished painters, they have also been curating the Upstairs Gallery since 2009 and have organized scores of exhibits featuring local artists. Both artists have vibrantly captured landscapes and structures of the North Fork as well as portraits of family, friends, and neighbors. Many of their works hang in local collections. This exhibition will celebrate not only their talents but also serve as a farewell to their co-curation of the gallery. The exhibition is sponsored by the Friends of the Library.

Group Show - Influences

November 2022 – January 7th, 2023

Influences, a new show in the Art Gallery poses a question to viewers: can you see a teacher’s influence in their students’ work? The late Jackie Penney was briefly a teacher of Diane Alec Smith, who is also a teacher and her students’ work is here too! We mixed up the paintings to let you see if you can figure out who painted what. Although many of us think we are familiar with Jackie Penney’s work, this show includes her less seen paintings which attest to the breadth of her skill, and her sense of humor. All but two are original paintings. All of the work is available for purchase.

Jacqueline Penny

Marilyn Wipf

Don Wilson

Diane Alec Smith

Don Wilson

Janine Harrigan

Marilyn Corwin

Mary Epperlein

Tracy Flynn

Patricia Kelly

Susan Bucjack

Heather Worthington

What is a Landscape? 4 Artists, 4 Contrasting Views

Art critic Amei Wallach asks the question in an exhibition of John Wittenberg’s riffs on furrowed fields in sculpture and handmade paper; Adam Straus’s reinvention of realist painting; Connie Fox’s abstract explosions in paint; and Pamela Wilson-Ryckman’s painterly grounds with their glimpse of something seen. Many works are for sale.

John Wittenberg

Adam Straus

Connie Fox

Pamela Wilson-Ryckman

Five Generations of Women in Art

Jane Sector

Martha Jane Paul

Mary Jane Paul

Invitational Show: Wendy Prellwitz, Tom Lulevitch, Mary Twomey, Mimi Meyers

Wendy Prellwitz

Tom Lulevitch

Mary Twomey

Meditation 1, 20×20 Linocut monotype collage

Meditation 2, 20×20 Linocut monotype collage

Meditation 3, 20×20 Linocut monotype collage

Turbulence, 17×18 Solarplate etching scaled

Waterfall 1, 13×21 Assembled collagraph scaled

Waterfall 2, 13×21 Assembled collagraph scaled

Mimi Myers

Cynthia Wells

Solo exhibition featuring works that explore light as a metaphor, with subjects that dance in and out of darkness representing the confusion of life. Paintings include oil on canvas as well as digital prints from her illustrated children’s book, Moonglow. Cynthia Wells studied at the California Institute of the Arts, and is an internationally exhibited artist and animation filmmaker. Visit: https://cynthiawellsart.com to learn more.

Water Skimmers and Water Boatmen – The water strider and water boatmen competing for the finish line.

Under the Drink – Fabulous beasts and creatures below the surface, sitting on worlds – Sculpting mix and wire

The Pond – At the freshwater pond there are amazing relay races

Tango – An interaction marked by a lack of straightforwardness, or maybe just a dance – oil on paint canvas

Pelicans, Dolphins Wave – Digitally drawn and painted using a wacom cintique tablet

Opossum Party – Opossums style their hair with their skinny tails

Garter Snakes in Moonlight – Garter snakes dance a jig in the silver moonlight

Forest Scene – Moonbeams filter through the forest canopy

Deer in Gathering Moonlight – The white tail deer sing a chorus of songs for their forest friends

Pufferfish – Oil paint on digitally drawn and painted print using a wacom cintique tablet

Bird Tea Party – Moonlit tea party with ripe berries and tasty seeds

Alternative Tango – Isolated in the dance – paint on panel

Lady Slippers – Lady Slipper flowers begin to glow like streetlights

Fireflies – Transformed by the moonbeams the fireflies glow purple and crimson red

Bears & Squirrels – Gray squirrels and black bears play games in the forest

North Fork Art Show 2020

Summer of 2020 exhibited many works of North Fork Artists in a video format due to Covid-19 lockdowns. We encourage you to sit back, relax, and enjoy this diverse visual display set to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major. Special thanks to Friends of the Library Adelaide Amend and Ann McCaughey.

Dedicated to Artist & Teacher, Jacqueline Penney.

Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Movements III & IV. Performance by Daniel Veesey. Recording courtesy of Musopen.

Oil & Water

Bob Mueller

The Cutchogue New Suffolk Free Library is proud to present Oil & Water, an exhibition of the art of Bob Mueller. Relax and enjoy this display of original oil paintings and monotypes set to the 3rd Movement (Allegro) of Carl Maria von Weber’s Grand Duo Concertant for clarinet and piano. This exhibit displayed in the library’s upstairs gallery April 2020 – September 2020.

Grand Duo Concertant for clarinet and piano by Carl Maria von Weber, Opus 48, 3rd Movement (Allegro). Performed by William McColl, clarinet, and Joseph Levine, piano. Sourced from WikiMedia Commons.