Fort Lee Artist Guild Spring Exhibit Opens Saturday

The Fort Lee Historical Society and the Fort Lee Artist Guild are once again sponsoring the annual Fort Lee Artist Guild Spring exhibit at the , showcasing the artwork of some of the guild’s more than 100 members.

Tom Meyers of the Fort Lee Cultural and Heritage Affairs Office, who runs the Fort Lee Museum, and Fort Lee Artist Guild president Bill Camal were at the museum Wednesday receiving work and preparing to hang the show by Friday in time for Saturday afternoon’s opening reception.

Meyers said the exhibit serves as a precursor to the Fort Lee Arts and Music Festival in June.

“Once a year we open the museum in the spring to the Fort Lee Artist Guild,” Meyers said. “There’s not a lot of gallery space in Fort Lee. There’s some in the library, which [Camal] created and still uses, and hopefully we’ll be able to expand that gallery there. But we felt that we wanted to open the museum.”

Meyers described the spring exhibit as a “revolving” one, showcasing the work of different guild members each year, because all of them get a chance to exhibit their work on Main St. in June.

“[Camal] pretty much gives everybody an opportunity if they’re a member of the Fort Lee Artist Guild,” he said. “Bill will select members each year. Pretty much every year [he gives] somebody an opportunity, so we’ve had a lot of members over the years exhibit with us here.”

Meyers added that the show, which features paintings only—no photography or sculpture—is “in the spirit of the Ortlips,” inspired in large part by the late Fort Lee painter Paul Ortlip, whose family, Meyers pointed out, operated an art studio across the street from where the Fort Lee Museum now stands “for the better part of the 20th century” before those houses were torn down and replaced by high-rise apartment buildings.

“I talked to Paul Ortlip before he passed away, and he said he would love to see us open the museum to the local artists, and we thought that was a great idea,” Meyers said. “So since he passed away, we started doing that.”

A lot of the work on display for the spring exhibit relates to Fort Lee history, including a large display on Fort Lee's Riviera Nightclub. The show also features work by the Ortlip family as it does every year and a reproduction of a drawing by Lionel Barrymore, the actor who lived and began his film career in Fort Lee in the early 20th century—also a tradition for the spring exhibit. A couple of Camal’s own paintings will also be on display.

Camal said Wednesday’s cold, rainy weather was strangely familiar on a day when he was busy preparing the exhibit.

“Of course we did this last year, and believe it or not, we had the exact same kind of weather,” Camal said. “And artists who have watercolors are deathly afraid to bring their stuff out. And I understand it. Who wants to bring your paintings out when it’s pouring?”

Meyers said that his aim in mounting the exhibit each year is at least in part to bring back a “sense of a community of artists in Fort Lee.”

“If you go back in the history of Fort Lee—even before the movies came—this was a town of artists and writers because of its close proximity to Manhattan,” he said, adding that New York City artists would often come to Fort Lee—especially in the summer—to paint atop the Palisades, and that many took up residence in the town.

“So you had a real art community in Fort Lee,” Meyers said. “Hopefully we’ll get to the point where we have some [more] gallery space in Fort Lee eventually to display artwork. And with any kind of new development over at [Redevelopment Area 5], maybe we can have local artists display their stuff. You have a very artistic and talented community here, and hopefully we’ll get the support of the community and they’ll come out and take a look at what’s going on here, because I think once they come in here, they’re amazed.”

If they’re amazed enough and like what they see, people can purchase the artwork on display, Meyers pointed out.

The annual Fort Lee Artist Guild Spring Exhibit opens Saturday with a reception at the Fort Lee Museum at 1588 Palisade Ave. The opening reception is open to the public and runs from 1 to 4 p.m. The exhibit runs through July 17. Museum hours are weekends from 12 to 4 p.m., Wednesdays from 7 to 9 p.m. and by appointment for groups during the week.  

For more information visit the Fort Lee Historical Society online, or call 201-592-3580.