The Art and Artists of Vermont

This 50-minute slide show of paintings and prints of Vermont scenes mostly done before 1960 is presented by Lyman Orton, art collector and proprietor of The Vermont Country Store. Along with Wardsboro resident and author Anita Rafael, Lyman narrates the stories behind the artwork of many of the painters who lived and worked in Vermont between the 1920s and the 1970s. Lyman Orton’s art collection is featured in the Summer 2023 issue of Yankee Magazine. In this slide presentation, he begins by telling the story of how he began buying the art of Vermont about 45 years ago, and how he has made it his mission to find and repatriate works of art of Vermont that have been scattered across America.

Some of the artists discussed in the slide show lived in Arlington, Vermont, including Rockwell Kent, John Atherton, and Mead Schaeffer. Others were among the group known in the 1920s and ‘30s as “the Dorset Painters” including Wallace Fahnestock, Dean Fausett, Harriet DeSanchez, and Arthur Jones. Nearly one-fifth of the paintings in Lyman Orton’s collection are by women who had brilliant careers in the arts such as Kyra Markham of Halifax, Marion Huse of Pawlet, and Bernadine Custer of Londonderry. Many of the paintings and prints these artists and many others did of Vermont have never been seen by the public.

In 2023, Lyman Orton and Anita Rafael co-authored a new book about his art collection titled: For the Love of Vermont: The Lyman Orton Collection.  The Wardsboro Public Library has a copy in circulation.