Diverse work in two and three dimensions by F. T. Mitchell
Thursday, November 1– Sunday, December 23, 2012

One of the best-known and most admired artists in the region, Fred Mitchell works in different media on many subjects in his precise and dramatic views of nature. Equally expert with land- and seascapes, florals, sports scenes, historical and contemporary portraiture, and animal studies, he captures the spirit of his subjects by the meticulous detail in which he renders them in his oil and watercolor paintings. Both human and animal figures are brought vividly to life in views that are seen from a close perspective.

A student of the distinguished Hudson Valley artist and teacher John Gould, Mitchell has been employed in a wide variety of art-related activities since he graduated from Newburgh Free Academy in 1959. He was a window designer and color matcher for the W. T. Grant Company and a color matcher and inspector for E.I. DuPont before serving as an illustrator and later as Art Director for the United States Military Academy at West Point. During his nearly three decades at West Point he also acted as consultant for ESPN and various Olympic events and operated a silk-screen business in the Town of Newburgh, as well as engaging in antique pottery repair and doll and oil painting restoration. He has won numerous honors throughout the region. His work is in the Hall of Fame of the Trotter and the Goshen Government Center in Goshen and the Catskill Fly Fishing Museum in Livingston Manor, and won the Blue Ribbon in Watercolor at the Community Art Show in Newburgh in 2008 and a ribbon at the show again in 2009. Paintings by Mitchell were commissioned for the Friends of the Milton Train Station Benefit Auctions in 2007 and 2008, and for the last three years he has won first and second place place ribbons in the annual Newburgh Free Library Community Art Shows.

Besides his paintings in oil and watercolor, Mitchell both sculpts in wood and works in scrimshaw, the ancient folk art of carving images onto the surface of bone, ivory, and horn. Examples of his wood carving and his figures scratched on moose and caribou horn will be included in this exhibition.

The Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum is located at 94 Broadway, across from City Hall,
in the City of Newburgh. The Karpeles Museums are a national chain with twelve in the U.S., specializing in the preservation and display of original, historically significant documents
and manuscripts. Museum Hours: Thu.-Sat., 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, 12 to 4 p.m.