The Letter

How did Ben and Rae get to “the farm,” as they often referred to this property? They were married six years before they found this spot. City dwellers in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue and Twelfth Street, like many New Yorkers, the Soloweys left town in the summertime. They went North to find good climate, rustic settings, and vistas to paint. In the thirteen years that Ben lived in New York, he never painted a cityscape—at a time when every artist painted the city. For Ben, bucolic rolling fields, barnyards, and the jagged coastline of Maine were fit subjects for his landscape paintings in both oil and watercolor.

Ben and Rae began with their honeymoon in June 1930. Casco Bay, Maine must have been magical for them that summer. They had known each other for only four months. It was love at first sight, with Ben proposing on their first date. They had met two days earlier. Nevertheless, that summer laid the foundation for a solid forty eight year marriage. That stay in Maine and one the following year resulted in a number of canvases and works on paper that Ben painted en plein air. Ben also indulged his interest in photography producing a healthy stack of negatives that he would develop back in his studio.

Subsequent summers took Ben and Rae to the White Mountains in New Hampshire, Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, Cross River, New York. Ben was at the mercy of the weather, and a good part of the summer could be lost to rain. After cutting short a stay in Pompton Lakes in 1935 after two weeks due to bad weather, they made their way to Cross River. Perhaps it ignited the idea to start looking for their own place in the country where they could go anytime. By the next summer, they had purchased this 34-acre farm.

Once here, Ben might awake and say the light’s right, let go to the Poconos and paint. Trips to see Rae’s family in Harrisburg meant painting along the

Susquehanna River. Always Ben seemed to be looking for a rendezvous with his second great love: Nature. While his landscape paintings and drawings rarely include people, trees, rocks and water provide the personality. Building seemed organic to the natural world, with old barns are old friends to the trees that surround them. Whether modernist daubs of color, or the puddling of ink, they seem as graceful and beautiful as his virtually singular figurative subject: Rae.

Ben recorded a piece of America that in many ways is already history. The lonely back road, the broken down farm, the untouched coast. In early 21st century America, these are becoming rare. In the mid 1950s he told a friend that they were were the last generation to enjoy the unspoiled environment. The American landscape for Ben Solowey was one of natural beauty. The hand of man that Ben looked for was that of the farmer. It is no wonder that Ben felt and Rae felt at home here in this farm community.

BEDMINSTER, PA — The Studio of Ben Solowey is pleased to announce a new exhibition, ON THE ROAD: Ben Solowey’s American Landscapes, an extraordinary collection of landscape paintings, drawings, and prints by Ben Solowey (1900 – 1978) of vistas off his Bucks County property. The exhibition will open to the public on Saturday June 2nd at the Solowey Studio in Bedminster, PA with a reception from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The installation will continue Saturdays and Sundays, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., through June 24, 2007.

“It was Ben Solowey’s desire to record the American landscape that led him to Bucks County,” say David Leopold, the Director of the Studio of Ben Solowey. “He painted in and around Philadelphia while a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and after a trip to Europe in 1924 – 1925, he never left the continental United States again. Once he moved to New York, he left the city and traveled up and down the Eastern Seaboard to capture pastoral scenes before coming to Bedminster, Pennsylvania in the spring of 1936. Here he bought a 34 acre property that became his home and studio for the last four decades of his career. He said that every time he looked out a window he saw a landscape to paint.”

The art in the exhibition covers over a half century, from 1924 to 1978 and includes scenes of Casco Bay, Maine; Cross River, New York; and Pompton Lakes, New Jersey among others. “Ben was painter who lived in Bucks County,” explains Leopold, “rather than simply a Bucks County painter.”

This new installation of Solowey works will display Ben Solowey’s remarkable versatility in a wide variety of media including oils, watercolor, pastel, and printmaking. It will include old favorites as well as works never exhibited before.

All will be shown in Solowey’s handcrafted studio. Visiting the exhibition “you understand why Ben gave up the great life he had in New York in the theater and exhibiting his canvases at the top museums and galleries,” explains Leopold. “His studio maintains the atmosphere of the artist at work.” The inviting studio, and the 34 acre property it sits on, were created and landscaped by Solowey after he left New York in 1942. The Studio has been featured in Architectural Digest, Pennsylvania Heritage, The Discerning Traveler, and Bucks County Town and Country Living.

“In honor of our opening on June 2nd we will continue our tradition of serving homemade refreshments in the Solowey home, “ says Leopold. “The two hundred-year old farmhouse was restored by Ben and is filled with museum quality furniture handcrafted by him. We only open the house twice a year, so this truly is a special event. Also on June 2nd only we are waiving our $5 admission fee.”