An example of Dillon’s sublime painting, on display at the Friends of Historic Kingston Museum, May 7 through October 30.
Kingston, NY
A major retrospective of paintings by Kingston artist Julia McEntee Dillon will
open in the gallery of the Friends of Historic Kingston Museum on Saturday,
May 7.
Sanford Levy and Charles Glasner of Jenkinstown Antiques, New Paltz, NY, curated
the exhibition, which will be featured in the museum gallery for the season,
and through October 30.
“The retrospective is aimed at bringing a well-accomplished 19th century
Ulster County woman artist into modern recognition,” Levy says. “Dillon
was one of the best known specialists in flower painting of her time.”
Dillon, born in Kingston in 1834, studied art in Paris where she was a student
of the French floral painter Georges Jeannin. She also spent time working in
the Rondout studio of her cousin, noted Hudson River School landscape painter
Jervis McEntee.
During the 1870s and ‘80s, she lived in New York City and painted at the
famous East 10th Street studio, frequented by students and artists from all
over. Throughout the last quarter of the 19th century she exhibited widely,
including shows at the National Academy of Design in New York City, “Columbia
Exhibition” in Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy
of Fine Art, and Brooklyn Art Association.
Married to John Dillon, an owner of the McEntee and Dillon Rondout Ironworks,
she was compelled to become involved in his business after his death in 1873
while continuing with her profession as an artist. She as described as a “forerunner
of the liberated women of today,” in the forward of a 1987 re-issue of
her book, Old Gardens of Kingston, first published in 1915.
Returning to live in Kingston in 1893, she established a studio in a still existing
old stone house on Pearl Street. She was actively involved in the community,
helping to establish the Kingston City Hospital, Kingston Library and Ulster
Garden Club. She died in Kingston in 1919 and is buried in Montrepose Cemetery.
Since her death, her work has been included in the Newark Museum’s “Women
Artists” exhibit and listed in the Smithsonian Institution’s “Inventory
of American Paintings”.
In 1997 one of her paintings was featured in American Beauty: The Rose in American
Art, an exhibition at Berry-Hill Galleries in New York City. Today, she remains
best known for her unique and beautiful floral paintings.
In addition to the exhibition’s major sponsor, the Friends of Historic
Kingston/Fred J. Johnston Museum, other underwriters of the show include the
Ulster Garden Club, “Fall for Art,” Jewish Federation of Ulster County,
The Ferriday Fund, Klock Foundation, Ulster Savings Bank, Rondout Savings Bank,
and private individual donors.
The exhibition will open on Saturday, May 7, and thereafter each Saturday and
Sunday, from 1 to 4 p.m., through October 30.
Admission is free and open to the public.
The Museum Gallery is located on the corner of Main and Wall Streets, opposite
the Old Dutch Church, in the Stockade District of Kingston, with easy access
from the NYS Thruway, Route 209, and other major thoroughfares.
For more information, call (845) 339-0720.
www.jenkinstownantiques.com
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