The Thomas Moran Trust moved closer to its restoration goals through a successful Midsummer Cocktail Party, held on the historical grounds of the Thomas Moran and Mary Nimmo Moran Studio on Main Street in East Hampton Village on July 29, 2016. The benefit party celebrated the final phases of its sensitive restoration project and offered the public a sneak-peek of the interior, as well as access to the outbuildings and grounds.
Artists turned out in support, bridging the legacy of the Morans with the contemporary East End art community. Artist attendees included April Gornik, Ralph Gibson, Mary Jane Marcasiano, Bryan Hunt, Lucy Wintor, Susan Wood, Neda Young and others. Philanthropists and Benefit Committee Members were in full attendance including co-chairpersons Hollis Forbes and Michael Clifford, Frank Newbold, Grier Eliasek and Tristana Wlatz, Charles Savage, Curt and Angel Schade, Doris and Gil Meister, Alan and Jackie Mitchell, Bruce and Laura Siska, Arthur (Tiger) and Katy Graham. East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. and his wife, Jean, were also in attendance, as was Ruth Appelhof, Executive Director of Guild Hall.
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Jean Rickenbach, EH Village Mayor Paul Rickenbach, Jr., Ruth Appelhof, Gary Adamek. Photo: Richard Lewin.
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Proceeds from the Midsummer Cocktail Party at the Moran Studio go towards the Restoration project in process. The goal is to raise $3 million to fund the entire restoration project with around half ($1.5 million) slated for the house and landscaping the grounds, according to The Thomas Moran Trust.
“We are very excited about our summer event," said Curt Schade, Chairman of The Thomas Moran Trust. "With the exterior restoration nearly complete, the proceeds from the event will help us toward our goal of completing the interior restoration and opening the house to the public next summer.”
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Thomas Moran Trust. Photo: Richard Lewin.
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The Moran Studio was the first artist’s studio built in East Hampton and it played a significant role in American art history. In 1885, the great American landscape painter Thomas Moran and his wife, Mary Nimmo Moran, a celebrated printmaker, and their children moved into their new studio and house that Moran himself designed on East Hampton’s historical Main Street. The Studio, as it has been known since the Moran family first occupied it, comprises Thomas Moran’s studio and the rooms they lived in, as well as the gardens and outbuildings. In its heyday The Studio was a lively center of the turn-of-the-19th-century art colony. In 1965, the Thomas Moran Studio became one of the first National Historic Landmarks in America.
The Thomas Moran Trust is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring the Moran Studio, gardens, and its four historically important outbuildings. Restoration on the property began in the fall of 2012. It is scheduled to open to the public in the summer of 2017 as an educational arts center
Continue scrolling to see some of the people who turned out to make the Midsummer Cocktail Party a successful one.
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Jack Lasersohn, Jill Lasersohn, Richard Barons. Photo: Richard Lewin.
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Loretta Orion, Hugh King. Photo:Richard Lewin.
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Gil and Doris Meister. Photo: Richard Lewin.
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Sabrina and Franz Walderdorff. Photo: Richard Lewin.
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Alan and Jackie Mitchell. Photo: Richard Lewin.
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Thomas Moran Trust's Midsummer Cocktail Party. Photo: Richard Lewin.
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BASIC FACTS: For information on the Thomas Moran Restoration project, including a link to photographs of its progress, visit thomasmorantrust.org. Contributions to the Campaign for the Restoration of the Moran Studio are gratefully welcomed and are tax deductible.
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