Art@Floyd Stow Wengenroth + The Flacks
Special Closing Event:
Stow Wengenroth + The Flacks: The Greenport Group
Saturday, June 13 · 2.30 pm
Floyd Memorial Library, Greenport, NY.
Stow Wengenroth + The Flacks
THE GREENPORT GROUP
And featuring new marionettes by contemporary puppet-maker Carmen Campos
Stow Wengenroth (1906–1978), Sterling Harbor, c. 1951. Pen and ink on paper, 7.5 x 14 inches. Collection of Joanna Lane.
April 24–June 14, 2026
Like the extremely well-received Whitney M. Hubbard: 150 Years (8/15–11/15, 2025), this exhibition highlights historic Greenport artists who warrant more recognition. The main body of the show comprises nearly fifty rarely exhibited artworks by one of America’s most acclaimed lithographers, Stow Wengenroth (1906–1978). Wengenroth lived in Greenport for over twenty years and his intricate lithographs are in the collections of America’s most prominent museums, including the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA.
On loan from the private collection of North Fork resident Joanna Lane, the Wengenroth works in Stow Wengenroth + The Flacks date to several distinct periods in the artist’s life. They reveal aspects of his oeuvre that are largely unknown. This includes twenty early drawings of Paris, which Wengenroth visited when he was twenty years old, just as he was finishing his formal artistic studies and before he turned to lithography. The drawings capture his fascination for the cityscape and its architecture, just as later drawings of Greenport and New England reveal Wengenroth’s love for the quiet beauty of the northeast.
Stow Wengenroth, Monday, n.d.
Watercolor on paper, 10 x 13 inches. Collection of Joanna Lane.
Stow Wengenroth, Monday, n.d. Watercolor on paper, 10 x 13 inches. Collection of Joanna Lane.
Stow Wengenroth, Storefront with a Bench, Paris, 1927.
Pencil on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches. Collection of Joanna Lane.
While Wengenroth is known primarily as a master draftsman, we are fortunate that Stow Wengenroth + The Flacks also includes several rare Wengenroth watercolor and oil landscapes, which exult in the natural landscape and rural life. All of the aforementioned works were kept in Wengenroth’s own collection until his death in 1978. To our knowledge, they have only been exhibited twice before, and have not been on public display for more than twenty years.
During the exhibition, to help gain further understanding of Wengenroth’s life and the complex process of lithography, we are delighted to have the opportunity to screen the documentary The Color of Light—Stone and Light: Stow Wengenroth by Heather Atwood of 1623 Studios in Gloucester, MA.
Stow Wengenroth + The Flacks also features Wengenroth’s local artist cohorts—his wife, the doll- and marionette-maker Edith Flack Ackley (1887–1970; also known as EFA), and her sister, children’s storybook author and illustrator Marjorie Flack (1897–1958).
The exhibition includes both documentary material about Wengenroth and the Flacks—such as photos and newspaper cuttings concerning EFA’s celebrated marionette show in the window of Elizabeth Arden’s Fifth Avenue, NYC, store—and original works from the library’s collection. In the latter category are EFA dolls and books; paintings of EFA dolls by her daughter Telka Ackley Beal (1918–2005); and children’s books by Marjorie Flack.
Among the featured pieces are treasures such as Silverpoint, an exquisite 1932 volume with poems by Ackley and lithograph illustrations by Wengenroth; a manuscript of the marionette play Pippin and Poppin by EFA; and a copy of Flack’s compendium of Topsy and Angus and the Cat, which is inscribed:
“For the children who come to the Greenport Public Library—and who enjoy the books they find there, as I did when I was a little girl. … Marjorie Flack”
While the library does not hold any original Edith Flack Ackley marionettes—objects that are exceptionally rare—this installation features two newly commissioned cloth marionettes by contemporary puppet-maker Carmen Campos, Ed.D.
Created in dialogue with EFA’s work, these marionettes draw upon similar materials and techniques, reinterpreted through a contemporary lens. In keeping with EFA’s legacy of sharing her craft through published patterns, Dr. Campos will also make patterns available, inviting young audiences to engage directly with the art of cloth marionette-making.
For further information, please contact:
Sally Grant, Art Exhibits Curator,
Floyd Memorial Library, Greenport, New York
Tel: 347 277 8692;
Email: sally@floydmemoriallibrary.org
Past Exhibits
