Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild

byCONTRAST exhibition opens
2026-04-18 | Kleinert James Gallery
On exhibit 18 April – 10 May
Gallery hours: Friday – Sunday, 12 – 5 PM
in partnership with Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA)
Quilt traditions abound in all cultures, and this exhibition is a testament to the complexity and beauty of this important art form. Thirty SAQA fiber artists created work exploring contrasts found in everyday expressions. The selected entries examine seemingly contradictory or incongruous figures of speech used for dramatic, humorous, or ironic effect. The show was curated by fiber artist Ann Johnston, whose experimentation with dye and fabric has led to numerous exhibitions worldwide, including over twenty solo exhibits and multiple publications.

byCONTRAST Artist Talk & Reception
2026-04-25 15:00 - 17:00 UTC
Meet the artists! Join us for a walk and talk of the quilt exhibition byCONTRAST. Artist reception to follow.
in partnership with Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA)
Quilt traditions abound in all cultures, and this exhibition is a testament to the complexity and beauty of this important art form. Thirty SAQA fiber artists created work exploring contrasts found in everyday expressions. The selected entries examine seemingly contradictory or incongruous figures of speech used for dramatic, humorous, or ironic effect. The show was curated by fiber artist Ann Johnston, whose experimentation with dye and fabric has led to numerous exhibitions worldwide, including over twenty solo exhibits and multiple publications.

Last day for byCONTRAST exhibition
2026-05-10 12:00 - 17:00
Last opportunity to view and purchase work from the quilt exhibition byCONTRAST
Quilt traditions abound in all cultures, and this exhibition is a testament to the complexity and beauty of this important art form. With vibrant, varied fabrics and small stitches, an exhibition of contemporary artist quilts comes to Byrdcliffe in partnership with Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA).
Thirty SAQA fiber artists created work exploring contrasts found in everyday expressions. The selected entries examine seemingly contradictory or incongruous figures of speech used for dramatic, humorous, or ironic effect. The show was curated by fiber artist Ann Johnston, whose experimentation with dye and fabric has led to numerous exhibitions worldwide, including over twenty solo exhibits and multiple publications.

Flock: 2026 Artists-in-Residence Exhibition opens to the public
2026-05-24 12:00 - 17:00
The 2026 Artists in Residence (A.i.R.) exhibition presents the work of the Byrdcliffe 2025 Artists-in-Residents. In a world that prioritizes production, residency programs offer a place for artists to generate ideas, experiment at their own pace, and, most of all, reflect on their practice. This exhibition and Showcase presents work representing a wide variety of creative practices of visual, literary and performing arts inspired by their 2025 Residency season.
On exhibition: 24 May – 21 June, 2026
Gallery hours: Friday – Sunday, 12-5 PM

Last day for Flock: 2026 Artists-in-Residence Exhibition
2026-06-21 12:00 - 17:00
This is the last day to view and purchase work from Flock: 2026 Artists-in-Residence exhibition. The 2026 Artists in Residence (A.i.R.) exhibition presents the work of the Byrdcliffe 2025 Artists-in-Residents. In a world that prioritizes production, residency programs offer a place for artists to generate ideas, experiment at their own pace, and, most of all, reflect on their practice. This exhibition and Showcase presents work representing a wide variety of creative practice across the board of visual, literary and performing arts inspired by their 2025 Residency season.

Opening Reception for "Going Upstate: The Avery Family in Woodstock"
2026-07-11 15:00 - 18:00
March Avery, Zena Cornfield, 2001, oil on canvas, 56″ x 40″

curated by Dr. Bruce Weber
Exhibition on view July 11 – October 25, 2026
Opening reception
Saturday July 11, 2026, 3-5 PM
For 125 years, Byrdcliffe has cultivated a community of artists at the base of Mount Guardian in the hamlet of Woodstock, NY. Founded on principles of camaraderie, fidelity to quality, a reverence for nature and deep respect for fellow creators, Byrdcliffe has welcomed an impressive roster of artists and thinkers to this important art colony.
While many of these creative denizens went on to reknown — Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Bob Dylan, Eva Hesse, Philip Guston, Thorstein Veblen and many more — few so embodied the spirit of Byrdcliffe than the Avery Family.
Spanning four generations, the exhibition brings together works by Milton Avery and Sally Michel Avery, their daughter March Avery, her husband Philip G. Cavanaugh, their son Sean Cavanaugh, and his child Delilah Cavanaugh. For the first time, the public will have the opportunity to experience an intimate look at the art created in Woodstock by the Avery family — a body of work deeply rooted in American modernism.

"Going Upstate: The Avery Family in Woodstock" gallery talk with curator Bruce Weber
2026-07-25 15:00 - 16:00
image: Sean Cavanaugh, Water, Mist and Mountain, 2018, watercolor on paper, 9″ x 12″
Join curator Bruce Weber for a tour of the exhibition Going Upstate: The Avery Family in Woodstock.
Spanning four generations, the exhibition brings together works by Milton Avery and Sally Michel Avery, their daughter March Avery, her husband Philip G. Cavanaugh, their son Sean Cavanaugh, and his child Delilah Cavanaugh. For the first time, the public will have the opportunity to experience an intimate look at the art created in Woodstock by the Avery family — a body of work deeply rooted in American modernism.
$10 Byrdcliffe members / $15 Not-yet-members
Reserve your space

About the Curator
Art historian and poet Bruce Weber received his Ph.D. in art history at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, where he studied with his longtime mentor Dr. William H. Gerdts. A leading scholar of American art of the past two centuries, Dr. Weber has served as a curator at several museums, including the Norton Museum of Art, the National Academy Museum and the Museum of the City of New York, and as the director of research and exhibitions at Berry-Hill Galleries in New York from 1990 to 2007.
Dr. Weber has published widely and curated numerous exhibitions on, among others, the artists William Merritt Chase, Marsden Hartley, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Stuart Davis and Will Barnet, and has organized shows on such diverse topics as the apple and rose in American art, late 19th and early 20th century American bronze figurative sculpture, and images of New York’s Flatiron Building and Washington Square. For the past several years he has been focusing his art historical attention primarily on the historic Woodstock art colony. Since 2020, Dr. Weber has curated twelve historical exhibitions in town and has produced and written extensively for his website Learning Woodstock Art Colony.

A Conversation About the Avery Family of Artists in Woodstock, With Sean Cavanaugh, Harvey Shipley Miller and Robert Selkowitz
2026-08-15 15:00 - 16:30
“Going Upstate: The Avery Family in Woodstock” curator Bruce Weber will moderate a conversation with artist and Avery family member Sean Cavanaugh, renowned collector Harvey S. Shipley Miller and artist and Avery family friend Robert Selkowitz.
$10 Byrdcliffe members / $15 Not-yet-members
Purchase tickets

Sean Cavanaugh was raised in Greenwich Village before attending Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he majored in Studio Art and Environmental Studies. He is a director of the Milton Avery Trust, over-seeing the artistic estates of his grandparents, Milton Avery and Sally Michel Avery, as well as the work of his mother, the painter March Avery (Cavanaugh). He is Vice President of The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, furthering its mission to enrich education in the visual arts.
Cavanaugh divides his time between lower Manhattan and Bearsville, where he lives with his wife and child, also an artist. He maintains a rigorous artistic practice of his own—his work pervaded by environmental consciousness. He has exhibited in the United States and internationally; most recently (in 2024) he was the subject of a solo exhibition, Eyes on Nature: The Art of Sean Cavanaugh, at the Morris Museum in New Jersey.

In spring 2003, Harvey S. Shipley Miller embarked on a massive shopping spree which has seen him amass some 2,500 drawings by four hundred contemporary artists from twenty countries, a trove he plans to offer to MoMA, Jason Edward Kaufman writes in the Art Newspaper. Miller’s philanthropic activities extend far beyond this high-profile gift; in 1993 he became executor of Judith Rothschild’s $42 million estate. As sole trustee of the Judith Rothschild Foundation, Miller disburses grants promoting under-recognized artists and engages in “discretionary initiatives” that benefit museums. He has become a patron of the Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum, the National Gallery, and the Philadelphia Museum, among others, serving on various committees and donating art and money. — from ArtForum, 2004

Robert Selkowitz is the author of three books of paintings with maps showing where the paintings were done: A Painter’s Path through the Catskill Mountains (2004), A Painter’s Path on Cape Breton Island (2006) and A Painter’s Path through the Adirondack Mountains (2012).
His paintings have been published in art posters by Portal Publications, in art notes by H. George Caspari and Bay View Press, and in calendars by Ronnie Sellers Productions.

“Going Upstate: The Avery Family in Woodstock” gallery talk with curator Bruce Weber
2026-08-29 15:00 - 16:00
image: Milton Avery, Dark Lake, 1962, oil on paper, 23″ x 35″
Join curator Bruce Weber for a tour of the exhibition Going Upstate: The Avery Family in Woodstock.
Spanning four generations, the exhibition brings together works by Milton Avery and Sally Michel Avery, their daughter March Avery, her husband Philip G. Cavanaugh, their son Sean Cavanaugh, and his child Delilah Cavanaugh. For the first time, the public will have the opportunity to experience an intimate look at the art created in Woodstock by the Avery family — a body of work deeply rooted in American modernism.
$10 Byrdcliffe members / $15 Not-yet-members
Reserve your space

About the Curator
Art historian and poet Bruce Weber received his Ph.D. in art history at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, where he studied with his longtime mentor Dr. William H. Gerdts. A leading scholar of American art of the past two centuries, Dr. Weber has served as a curator at several museums, including the Norton Museum of Art, the National Academy Museum and the Museum of the City of New York, and as the director of research and exhibitions at Berry-Hill Galleries in New York from 1990 to 2007.
Dr. Weber has published widely and curated numerous exhibitions on, among others, the artists William Merritt Chase, Marsden Hartley, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Stuart Davis and Will Barnet, and has organized shows on such diverse topics as the apple and rose in American art, late 19th and early 20th century American bronze figurative sculpture, and images of New York’s Flatiron Building and Washington Square. For the past several years he has been focusing his art historical attention primarily on the historic Woodstock art colony. Since 2020, Dr. Weber has curated twelve historical exhibitions in town and has produced and written extensively for his website Learning Woodstock Art Colony.
