The public is invited to meet the artists at a reception at the Karpeles Museum on Saturday, May 7, from 1-4 p. m.

A show that celebrates much more than a single flower, “The Subject Was Roses” reminds us of the wide thematic and technical range of which pastel art is capable. Dynamic landscapes and elegantly composed still lifes, as well as the florals appropriate to the season, are among the subjects of this varied artistic welcome to the spring.

Many of the local artists on display in this show are well-known in the area and have exhibited widely. All studied at the Desmond Campus here in Newburgh or abroad through the Burren Art Centre in Ireland. Affiliated with numerous art associations and galleries in the Hudson Valley, New England, and beyond, they have shown their work in other Karpeles Museum shows and elsewhere in the city often over the years. Their command of the exacting medium of pastel is well known to art-lovers here and throughout the area.