The life and work of Art Kane, one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, will be discussed in a program hosted by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) Saturday, July 21 at 7 p.m. at the HSM hall, 778 Cemetery Road, Margaretville.

“Marking Time” is an illustrated talk by Art’s son, musician and photographer Jonathan Kane, who spent a fair portion of his youth at the Margaretville house which was owned by his famous father for almost 30 years, from 1963 to 1991, a period when he was creating some his most visionary work in fashion, editorial and travel photography, celebrity portraiture and nudes.

Art Kane (1925 – 1995) graduated from Cooper Union with honors in 1950 and was soon designing page layouts at Esquire. As the 27-year-old art director at Seventeen, he was the youngest art director of a major magazine in New York City.

In 1956 he studied with Alexey Brodovitch at The New School, where other students included Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Diane Arbus. A disciple of Brodovitch, Kane nonetheless forged a path of his own, pioneering numerous concepts in modern photography. Decades before Photoshop and digital imaging, Kane invented the ‘sandwich image’, layering multiple transparencies together to invest his images with metaphor and poetry, effectively turning photography into illustration.

In 1958, Kane assembled the greatest legends in jazz and shot what became one of his most famous images, Harlem 1958. In the 1960s and 1970s, he photographed, among others, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Janis Joplin, the Doors, Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan.

While the battle for civil rights and the Vietnam War raged, Kane was refining a conscientious response to the period with his editorial work, accessible and populist in its ability to communicate to a large audience.

Kane also contributed to the major fashion magazines of his era and created startling ad campaigns for the fashion and beauty industry.

In his lifetime Kane was honored by almost every photo-design organization in the United States, including the American Society of Magazine Photographers which named him Photographer of the Year.

Tour goers will be led in small groups to meet these folks and others who will talk about their families and friends, struggles and joys, and the events that shaped their lives. Humor, pathos and secrets mark this year’s presentations by area players, some of them descended from the people they will portray.

This is a fundraiser for HSM; tickets are $20, children 12 and under get in free.
Characters in this year’s tour, and the actors who will portray them, include Jennie McKenzie Hewitt Doland, schoolteacher, seamstress and diarist (Agnes Laub); the Kelly Brothers — George, Norman and David — who ran a large farm and several businesses in the hamlet (Rich, Tim and Terry Kelly, great-grandsons of George); Ed and Aurelia Griffin, railroad station agent, and keepers of a general store, post office and restaurant (Dave Truran and Amy Taylor).

Also, Andrew Moldovan, Russian immigrant farmer (Erwin Karl); Sherman Bussy, hotel proprietor, and his grandson Winfield (John Bernhardt and Eli Taylor); and George W. Hubbell, factory owner and jack of all trades (great-nephew Burr Hubbell).

The Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era program that put millions of young men to work repairing environmental damage and building parks and trails, will be discussed Saturday, June 9 at 10 a.m. at the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM), 778 Cemetery Road, Margaretville.
“Trees, Skis and the Triple Cs” is a program by Diane Galusha, author of Another Day, Another Dollar: The Civilian Conservation Corps in the Catskills. A Headwaters History Days offering, the illustrated presentation is free. It will be followed by a short walk in a nearby CCC-planted forest.

The CCC was created in 1933 by an Executive Order signed by newly-elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A federally-sponsored program for unemployed men from 17 to 25 years of age, its aim was to assist Depression-stricken families and at the same time conduct conservation projects to reverse decades of environmental degradation, improve public lands and develop parks and campgrounds for public enjoyment.

CCC camps in the Catskill region were established in Boiceville, Tannersville, and Margaretville, as well as in Sullivan, Otsego and Schoharie Counties. The Margaretville camp, located just west of the village, housed some 200 men and operated from 1935 to 1938.

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) will hold its Annual Meeting and Luncheon Saturday, Oct. 21 at its meeting hall, 778 Cemetery Rd., Margaretville.

The luncheon, catered by Anna Blish, will begin at noon. Seats are $20; reservations may be made by calling 845-586-2860.

A brief business meeting and annual report will start at 1 p.m.

Following the meeting, Bill Horne, author of The Improbable Community: Camp Woodland and the American Democratic Ideal, will provide an illustrated talk, “It ain’t nice fer purty: Tales from the age of homespun.”

The talk will focus on Orson Slack of Arena and Mike Todd of Dry Brook who became close friends of Camp Woodland, a remarkable summer camp near Phoenicia that operated from 1939 to 1962. Young urban campers came to know many of their mountain neighbors through a program of collecting songs, lore and local history.

Orson Slack demonstrates a tool for Camp Woodland youngsters

In the mid-1940s, camp director Norman Studer drove a group of campers along the East Branch of the Delaware River to meet and learn from residents who remembered the homespun era. Orson Slack welcomed them into his carpentry shop and related tales about lumber rafting on the Delaware and winters in the woods. Mike Todd captivated campers with stories about bear hunting and his woodsman’s skills and entertained with harmonica tunes accompanied by the rattle of hardwood maple bones.

Once, when someone complimented Mike on a tool he had forged, he said, “It ain’t nice fur purty, but it’s hell fur stout.”

Annual Folk Festivals organized by Studer and music director Herb Haufrecht were held nearly every summer of the camp’s existence, and featured storytellers, fiddlers and artists from the Catskill region. In 1948, Orson Slack told stories and recited his poems alongside folksinger Pete Seeger and many others. Mike Todd appeared at the 1954 festival, held at Simpson Ski Slope.