The New Season at Caramoor can mean many things. First of all there is the Summer Music Festival. There is also The Rosen House Museum. The new show this year in the Rosen House from the Collection is: “From Here to Eternity: Popular Female Deities in Chinese Art.” Then there are the Galas which raise funds for each of them.

As a Docent at Caramoor, the new season means waking up the dormant memory cells in order to give a rewarding tour at the Rosen House Museum.The lives of the Rosens plus their collections is a topic too vast for any blog. Therefore I have struggled how to share the story of my new “Home Away From Home.” My solution - to tell you the introduction I give in the Music Room before the audience is broken out into smaller groups for the House Tour.

“Walter Tower Rosen was born in Berlin in 1875 and came to the United States with his family in 1885 for business reasons. He was tutored at home, entered Harvard at the age of 16 and graduated in three years. He played classical piano and practiced every morning before breakfast. He also befriended the Gardiners of Fenwick Court in Boston and perhaps their love of collecting inspired young Walter to do the same some day.

He returned to New York, graduated from New York Law School and while working in a New York Law firm he caught the eye of a client and went on to investment banking where his specialty became railroads.

Lucie Bigelow Dodge had a very interesting background as well. Her grandfather was one of the Founders of the New York Public Library, an Ambassador to France for Lincoln during the Civil War and an editor at The New York Post. Lucie’s Mother divorced her father when Lucie was twelve and a student at the Brearley School in New York. In order to divorce they had to establish a residence in South Dakota. Her mother Flora then married Lionel Guest - first cousin to Winston Churchill. They had a social life in London that Lucie quickly tired of. She missed working for her grandfather in New York and she ran away from home. She was found by Scotland Yard and returned under the condition that she could return to New York. She also then studied at McGill University in Montreal . It was at the Guest summer home in Quebec that her brother introduced her to Walter Rosen. They soon married in a simple ceremony due to the War of 1914. He was 39, she was 23. He was 5’6”, she was 5’10”.

They had two children - Walter Jr. and Ann. They used to travel on vacation to Venice every fall from their four adjacent town homes on West 54th Street which were over flowing with their growing collections of Renaissance Art. Lucie fell ill one year while there and suggested to her husband that they find a spot closer to her New York doctors and hospitals.

A colleague at his law firm told him that his mother Carolyn Moore Hoyt was thinking of selling her 100-acre estate in Katonah, NY. The name Caramoor is either the name of the property at that time after Carolyn Moore or we muse that it may be due to the Rosen’s love of all things Italian and their celebrated love for one another - Cara & Amore. Since it was 1929, they shelved their plans for a grand palazzo and expanded on the stable and staff buildings that were first built. Walter Rosen continued to visit his art dealer in Venice every September and would have the rooms from the palaces of Europe dismantled and retrofitted into the new space. It was completed in 1939.”

That is where I will have to stop! For more of the details on the Rosen Family, the many fascinating and some tragic stories, plus to enjoy their vast collections plan a visit to Caramoor! Group Tours, Concerts and Teas are all available as well. Plus, plan to come to one of the many concerts planned this Summer. Picnicking is also welcome on the grounds pre-concert.

As a Realtor I must share with you the fact that there are very special homes on the market right now in the Caramoor area. If you are interested, please give me a call! 914-232-1212 x342; KBenvinRansom@HoulihanLawrence.com

Caramoor.org

Posted By: Karen Benvin Ransom

Contrast! Compare!

That was the booming voice of the Art History Professor to the darkened lecture hall during an exam. Slides of art lit up the front of the classroom. In the dark we had to write madly until the next set of slides would appear.

Compare! Contrast!

Once again with the sharp staccato of a Ballet Master’s staff.

These are the voices I hear as I go through the installation of the new Lichtenstein Show at The Katonah Museum of Art, “Lichtenstein in Process.” March 29th to June 28th, 2009.

The first two things I have to compare are the differences between the two institutions of art that I lead docent tours of within the Hamlet of Katonah in the Town Of Bedford, New York.

The first is The Rosen House at Caramoor. The permanent beautiful vast collections of Renaissance and Oriental Art plus whole rooms dismantled from convents and castles throughout Europe are retrofitted into the living space created for them. www.caramoor.org. There the collection remains the same and we have the job to help people feel their love of collecting and how it was their home and their daily life. We may decide to study pieces in depth. There are also small shows within the home. “The Art of Majolica” was the last one and “The Female Deities of Chinese Art” will be opening in May. There is a lecture given on each show in advance.

The Katonah Museum of Art - www.katonahmuseum.org - on the other hand has changing shows of many periods and mediums of art several times a year! You really have to be quick on your feet (and in your mind) in order to learn the new material in time. They prepare you by holding lectures on the subject held in the Pound Ridge Library and once the show is hung or displayed you are to tour it at least once again with a Curator and fellow docents to learn it “in situ”. This happens within a day or two of the grand opening.

Then as for Lichtenstein ( pronounced “lick-ten-styne” just as in the Country) we go through his process - view his inspiration, see his sketch and then see his collage phase of the process - basically his “on canvas” workshop. Here he transferred his ideas from the sketch by drawing, painting, covering changes with pieces of paper, using strips of tape, pieces of foil to define his bold outlines and plan the execution of the final piece. The work is done in half scale of the final work. It was then photographed using a 35mm camera and then a slide was made and projected onto a fresh canvas. The final work is then painted. Also there is the use of his famous “Benday Dots” in not only his comic paintings but in his ethereal landscapes.

We are comparing and contrasting his inspiration - the work of Matisse, Picasso, Klein, ancient Chinese scrolls, illustrations from the yellow pages, cheap novellas and even Disney to his interpretation of it. Sign of the times - most asked question - was he ever sued by the Families, Foundations or Companies? He was never sued for interpreting their works.

The Katonah Museum is open Tuesday - Saturday 10-5. Sunday 12-5. Docent led tours are at 2:30 each day. There are also things for the children to do plus a Family Day will be on Sunday May the 3rd 1-4.

Posted By: Karen Benvin Ransom