Gallery opens inside former Newburgh bank
Late last year, Beacon artist Allison Walker figured she would have to find a new space: The Newburgh building housing her studio had been sold.
Then she learned philanthropist Ted Doering had purchased the building, the 101-year-old former Newburgh Savings Bank, to maintain the status quo and buttress the artistic community.
The former bank, at 94 Broadway, has a soaring 30-foot ceiling and ornamented marble. In September, the Gerald A. Doering Foundation turned it into the Bank Art Gallery.
At the June 12 opening for the exhibit A Collector’s Vision, the gallery director, Shirley Giler Noto, showed off a raw, 7,000-square-foot labyrinth of basement rooms she calls the Collector’s Vault.
On the lower floor, it turns out that weighty doors with iron bars, a wall of safe deposit boxes and a jumble of semi-claustrophobic passageways add edge to the showing of contemporary art. Before this iteration, the building housed the Salvaggi Gallery, but that project ran out of steam.
“We figured out what to put in here and know that art is the foundation for any city to thrive,” says Noto. “Look at Beacon.”
Noto, who is also the Doering foundation’s director and owns an Italian deli in town, decided to take a crack at the art world: She has never curated before and lacks experience running a gallery.
But she has good taste, a background in marketing and puts in the work: from 5 to 7 a.m., just about every day, she scours Instagram searching for local, regional, national and international artists to represent.
Her featured creator, Rhea Marmentini, is “a worldwide superstar” who recently moved from Spain to Brooklyn and Catskill. Her paintings and sculptures are shown in the gallery’s funky underbelly.
Noto also offered space to Piper Grant, 24, a recent MFA graduate at the New York Academy of Art, who depicts futuristic, robotic dogs from outer space. Another painter, Sheila Schwid, is 92.
Standouts in the exhibit include driftwood sculptures by Andres San Millan, who renders hands and feet in exquisite detail. Franc Palaia’s photos of graffiti mounted on polystyrene look like chunks of plastered walls, although they weigh only about 4 pounds.
R.A. Pesce, represented by Studio Tashtego in Cold Spring, contributed a dozen pieces of glazed white stoneware that resemble bronze and other dense material. The finish on the piece “BRRRKO1” glitters gold with tints of contrasting greens and other colors.
Many of Alex Kveton’s stunning sculptures turn heavy metals into an Art Deco take on ancient armor and statuary. A couple of his stainless-steel works, which feature two columns in proximity, include a strip of color that creates funhouse mirror reflections.
Walker contributed three painted monotype prints, including one representing a scene in The Aeneid with two rings around a fire. The other textured works, “Sex” and “Prophecy,” are also programmatic. “The style, the strokes, the colors; there’s something about these beautiful pieces that make me feel warm,” says Noto.
Plans are to open the 13,000-square-foot fourth floor in March 2026 so that the entire building will be devoted to art. That would likely make it the Hudson Valley’s largest gallery, says Noto.
“The goal is to turn this into an auction house,” she says. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re here for the long haul.”
Bank Art Gallery, at 94 Broadway in Newburgh, is open 4 to 8 p.m. on Friday and noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. See bankartgallery.com. A Collector’s Vision continues through Aug. 3.
