2024.04.25

In 1953, after a home town art exhibit in Saugatuck Village Hall, newspaper illustrator and fine artist, Nat Steinberg, who had recently moved to the area, suggested that the group represented in the exhibit continue their work together. The group met on September 4, 1953 and named Jean Goldsmith the first president. She, May Heath, and Marguerite Bainbridge were among the officers named at that first gathering. These three women pulled together an art club that winter of 1953, and Goldsmith began teaching a class in pottery and painting attended by local villagers. By the next summer, in1954, on a chicken wire and wood rack, the members began to hold annual art shows on the grounds of the Saugatuck Village Hall. In 1955, the display turned into what is now famously called the “Clothesline Art Shows” in which artists would display their works by hanging them from clotheslines strung between trees and ladders in the side yard. The art exhibits held by the Art Club were originally designed just for members of the Club to showcase their work. Exhibitions were held at the Red Barn Theatre, Saugatuck Village Hall, and the Woman’s Club. But by 1956, the Clothesline Art Show was staged in the park near the Butler restaurant and had expanded to twenty-one artists (including seven members) all of which were showing and selling their work. Believe it or not, this was the first show of its kind for artists in western Michigan. The concept caught on, and even Cora Bliss Taylor had a clothesline show for the students in her childrens’ art classes at the end of each summer. Source: Saugatuck-Douglas Art Club website, June 2024 https://www.saugatuckdouglasartclub.org/history/sdac-history

Artists

Winthers, Sally

06/29/2024

06/29/2024