A 50-year retrospective of paintings by local artist Diane Lundegaard, entitled Looking Back, Looking Ahead, will be on exhibition at the Cold Spring Harbor Library Environmental Center from July 1 through Sept. 11. The works on display will include early sketches of local flora and fauna, including a small gem of horses grazing at the former Randall McIntyre estate in Dix Hills, and later works, including images of the aquatic life at the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery & Aquarium.
Lundegaard, who earned her BFA and MA at SUNY at Stony Brook, graduated from Half Hollow Hills High School in Dix Hills during the late 1960s. While in attendance, she took art classes with Lloyd Harbor sculptor Charles Reina, who then taught at the school. During this period, she also studied ballet with Iva Kitchell, a world-renowned dancer who resided in Dix Hills. Her husband, Stokely Webster, a distinguished impressionist painter, had his paintings displayed in Kitchell’s ballet studio. Seeing his work inspired Lundegaard to eventually spend a little more time painting than dancing.
“The Websters were an amazing couple and both of them had a profound influence on my artistic endeavors. They were a creative well spring during an era when the arts on Long Island were still in their naissance,” said Lundegaard.
After later spending time studying ballet and painting in Paris, Lundegaard made the decision to pursue painting. She studied with the New Realist painter Bill Beckman while she attended Staten Island College, and later had the opportunity to study Asian brush painting with May Wong Moy, also of Dix Hills. Around this time, Lundegaard began teaching art at East Woods School in Oyster Bay. After that, she joined the educational staff at the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery & Aquarium.
“My work as a Hatchery educator gave me a particular type of exposure to the nature of aquatic life, which I then wished to share visually with others. The materials of Asian brush painting, ink, rice paper and bamboo brush, lent itself very well to depicting the mysterious world of our waterways. Since I have always had great concern for protecting our natural resources, I felt that by painting aquatic life, for example, fish, turtles, salamanders and the plants that live in the water, I could sensitize the public to at least one dimension of the environment in need of our protection,” said Lundegaard, a former member of the Long Island Regional Planning Board’s Citizens Advisory Committee’s 208 Federal Ground Water Study.
Lundegaard’s award-winning paintings have been exhibited throughout the greater metropolitan area, and she continues to paint at her Dix Hills studio. Like Grandma Moses, she says she looks forward to painting through her golden years. A percentage of any proceeds from the exhibition will be donated to the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery & Aquarium’s new Turtle Pond exhibition.
For further information, contact the Hatchery at 516-692-6768 or info@cshfishhatchery.org. The Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery & Aquarium is on Rt. 25A in Cold Spring Harbor.
