'The Art and Love of Longshore'

The Westport Public Library opened an exhibition titled "The Art of Longshore," on Friday, to mark the 50th anniversary of Westport's purchase of the scenic seaside park.

Curator Helen Klisser During, director of Visual Arts for the Westport Arts Center, selected oils, watercolors and photographs to celebrate the natural beauty of the 169-acre park.

"I looked for iconic images that capture different moods," Klisser During said. The 32 works by 11 artists "sing a song of joy – the art and love of Longshore."

For some, the art provided clues to the rich history of beloved Longshore.

Ed Train, an avid sailor, was observed photographing a tiny bi-plane seaplane depicted on the poster advertising the Longshore Beach and Country Club which occupied the site during the Jazz Age.

"This is a very strange seaplane – it couldn't have existed in real life. It's a pipe dream," he concluded, as others gathered round the poster to make comparisons between the former and the modern Longshore. Gone are the bathhouses; they've given way to swimming pools and the Longshore Sailing School.

Larry Silver's iconic black-and-white photographs of a lone jogger — disappearing into the mist enveloping the stately maples lining the grand entranceway to Longshore — were shot in 1979, and they serve as an historic record as well as artistic experience.

"Oh Larry, where did those trees go?" asked Birthe Shwisha, longtime friend of Silver. "I played golf there yesterday and they were gone."

"The camera captures time," she said.

The contrast between the old and the present entranceway was dramatically illustrated in a work loaned by graphic artist Miggs Burroughs, who also created the logo of the Longshore Club Park 50th Anniversary (a sailboat inside the "O" in "Longshore).

It is a "lenticula," a photograph consisting of two images, changing from one to the other as one moves in front of it.

Burroughs borrowed the base photograph from the Westport Historical Society – which curator Klisser During herself borrowed to pair with Burrough's work at the show – and superimposed upon it a photograph he took from the same vantage point.

The magical effect is made possible through the use of optical plastic sheet with grooves, which act as prisms changing the direction of light.

Burroughs, too, bemoaned the loss of the lush canopy of uniformly towering trees which had lined the entranceway in the 1930s.

Westport artist Matthew Levine, another contributor to the show, was taught by his father, the late celebrated caricaturist David Levine, to paint what he knows, what is local to him.

Levine's "Looking Back on 8" and "Whispering Pines" both capture thoughtful moments at Longshore. In November, Levine will have a solo exhibit at the library consisting of Westport scenes.

On his iconic images of the jogger on the road to Longshore in 1979, Silver said, "It was the most beautiful morning, with mist in the air, when I came upon the scene." 

"I heard a huffing behind me – the jogger – and  as he ran ahead I ran behind him, dropped to my knees and got off three shots, vertical and horizontal," he continued. "I made sure to wait til both his feet were on the ground so he would not look one-legged," Silver said.

"And then [the anonymous jogger] was gone."

The wide-angle lens enabled him to create an image full of mystery. Dark-room skills helped create the final images, notable for their shiny puddles and subtle colorations. Prints have been sold at poster and art shops around the world, he said.

"My favorite piece is this," Nikki Undermeyer said to her friend Susan Miller, pointing to Silver's  "Jogger on Road to Longshore." "I just love how it goes off with a perspective, the shapes of the trees, the time of year."

"I think what you're trying to say is it speaks to your heart," offered Miller.

The Library will continue the townwide 50th anniversary celebration of Longshore with a special viewing of  a 26-minute documentary film, "Longshore Club Park: Westport Crown Jewel," specially made to mark the anniversary, on Tuesday, June 15, at 7:30 p.m. in the McManus Room.

"It will be my first chance to see the whole film on a wide screen, not a monitor," said Scott Smith, chairman of the Longshore Club Park 50th Anniversary Committee and author of the script.