During the summers of 2019 and 2020, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park is hosting an outdoor exhibition of Hudson River School artists, created by internationally renowned sculptor Greg Wyatt. The exhibition, “Hudson on the Garden,” includes Wyatt’s renderings of Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, and Sanford Gifford – three 19th century artists whose paintings sparked the idea that beauty can justify preservation.

On September 7th, Wyatt and a team from the Modern Art Foundry officially opened the exhibition with a patina application demonstration.  Visitors enjoyed viewing the fiery process and learning more about the relationship between artist and artisan.

Founded in 1932, the Modern Art Foundry provides sculptors access to skilled craftspeople, tools, machinery, and technology needed to cast sculpture. Located in Long Island City, New York, the foundry works on pieces ranging from two inches to 50 feet, from representational to abstract and from the critically acclaimed artist to the amateur sculptor.  In 2019, the National Sculpture Society honored Bob Spring, who ran the foundry from the early 1970’s until 2015.  The foundry is still in family hands, run now by Mary Jo Spring and Jeffrey Spring.

Wyatt’s work, which merges highly realistic representational figures with creative masses of form, space and energy, is imbued with lyricism and spirituality. His pieces are in major intuitions and in public spaces across the world, including Shakespeare’s Great Garden in Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom and Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia. He is currently the sculptor-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City.

“Hudson on the Garden” is part of an ongoing series of exhibitions at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller NHP that explore the role of art in the American conservation movement. Wyatt’s sculptures, situated harmoniously in a garden landscape, invite visitors to consider the power of art to shape human relationships with the natural world.