On Wednesday, Jan. 28, the Schmucker Art Gallery welcomed independent scholar Bruce Weber for a dialogue and a reception to officially open his curated exhibition titled “Making Her Mark: Fifty Women Artists of the Historic Woodstock Art Colony.” In addition to Weber’s work, the display was also supported by two student researchers from the Art History department, Adrianna Ashcraft ’26 and Audrey Blazsak ’27.
Introduced by the interim director of the Schmucker Art Gallery, Sarah Kate Gillespie, who shared that she and Weber have worked together in the past, Weber offered an explanation of what brought him to the Woodstock art colony. After years of curating art at museums up and down the East Coast, Weber finally landed in Woodstock and later became a board member of the Historical Society of Woodstock (HSW), all while taking an interest in the history of the women’s art colony that developed nearby in Byrdcliffe. The HSW was founded in 1929, while the art colony was founded in 1902 and still exists today.
“The reason the historical society was founded was because [some members of the Byrdcliffe art colony] had just passed away, and people wanted to be able to archive it,” shared Weber. “Mostly artists founded it.”
Bruce Weber delivering his lecture to guests at the Schmucker Art Gallery. (Photos Sofia Gutierrez/The Gettysburgian)
This exhibit features works including “Hollyhocks” by Mary Dufrense Smith, “Space Station” by Grace Greenwood, “The Village” by Althea Spalding Odell, “Pine Grove Pleasure Park” by Dorothy Varían, and many more paintings, drawings and prints by the fifty featured women artists. Each piece is owned by the HSW today. These women artists were all students at the Art Student League’s Woodstock School of Landscape Painting, a recurring art program during the periods of 1906 through 1922 and 1947 through 1979.
Weber explained that the majority of the women artists also worked while staying in the colony, and many were mothers. He also described that some came from long lines of wealth, and one was even a silent film actress. Their artistic subjects vary just as much as their lives did, with portraiture, landscapes, still life designs and abstract art each finding a home in the exhibition.
“I wanted to get a mix of different stories and different lives,” expressed Weber.
During his lecture, Weber detailed the historic town of Woodstock and its relationship to the arts, going deep into the 1900s to discuss the transformation of buildings like general stores into studios and galleries. He also shared more about some of the women artists in the exhibition, and he emphasized the difficulty of finding information about the art colony and its rotation of inhabitants.
“Women could truly be free to express themselves in the colony,” stated Weber.
To see the exhibition in person, the Woodstock art will be on display in the Schmucker Art Gallery until April 11, rounding out the spring semester. For more information or an exhibit schedule, check the gallery’s website or Instagram @schmuckerartgallery.
This article originally appeared on pages 16-17 of the February 2026 edition of The Gettysburgian magazine.
