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.

The sixth Living History Cemetery Tour presented by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) takes place Saturday, July 7 (rain date July 8) at the Halcottsville Cemetery. Tours begin every 20 minutes starting at 4 p.m., with the last tour departing at 6 p.m. Reservations are required and can be made by calling 845-586-4736. This popular event will bring to life eleven people who once lived in Halcottsville, ten of them now lying in this peaceful cemetery on Back River Road, on a hill overlooking Lake Wawaka. Meet the trio of brothers who shaped commerce and community in the hamlet; the diarist who recorded the comings and goings of her neighbors for 50 years; the railroad station agent haunted by a horrific train crash; the hotel keeper who was witness to a scandal, and the woman who knows the truth behind it and returns to tell her story.

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.