Bill Sullivan (1942-2010) began painting the New York City skyline in 1968. He later became known for place-specific landscapes featuring a saturated, vivid palette, ranging from the lakes and mountains of Ecuador and Colombia to iconic views of the Empire State Building and the Theatre District. This exhibition is drawn from the Hebrew Home’s art collection and includes 10 of Sullivan’s breathtaking city and landscape canvases.

Sullivan was born in Hartford, CT, and lived in New York City and Hudson, NY. He attended Silvermine College and received an M.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. He also studied privately with Josef and Anni Albers. Sullivan’s first solo show was in 1970 at the Bowery Gallery in New York. In 1978, inspired by the painter Frederic Edwin Church, Sullivan traveled for two years throughout South America to the places that Church had visited, painting such sites as the mountain Monserrate, the waterfall Tequendama and Lake Maracaibo.

As poet John Ashbery has written of the landscapes: “With only a tinge of irony, Bill Sullivan makes new the vast spaces and swooning optimism of 19th-century Luminist painting. Reaffirming the contemplation of nature as its own reward, he also sets new tasks for painting, and undertakes them with compelling eagerness.”

His work has been exhibited widely in individual and group shows in galleries and museums in the U.S., including, most recently, Carrie Haddad Gallery and BCB Gallery, both in Hudson, and several in New York City, such as Uptown Gallery, Susan Schreiber Gallery, Michael Ingbar Gallery, John Szoke Gallery, and G.W. Einstein. He showed internationally in Bogota, Colombia; London; Abu Dhabi; Hamburg, and in several cities in Japan, including Tokyo and Kyoto, among others. His work also is included in many private and public collections, such as Albany Institute of History and Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Hudson River Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and museums in Colombia and Venezuela.

As a member of the American Association of Museums, The Hebrew Home at Riverdale is committed to publicly exhibiting its art collection throughout its 32-acre campus including the Derfner Judaica Museum and a sculpture garden overlooking the Hudson River and Palisades. The Derfner Judaica Museum + The Art Collection provide educational and cultural programming for residents of the Hebrew Home, their families and the general public from throughout New York City, its surrounding suburbs and visitors from elsewhere. The Home is a nonprofit, non-sectarian geriatric organization serving more than 7,000 elderly persons through its resources and community service programs. Museum hours: Sunday – Thursday, 10:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Art Collection open daily, 10:30 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. Call for holiday hours, or for further information visit our website at http://hebrewhome.org/art.asp