The Hudson Valley Visual Arts Consortium is a collaborative digitization project of four visual arts organizations in New York State's Hudson River Valley: the Center for Photography at Woodstock, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum. Its purpose is to raise awareness of the Hudson Valley's rich artistic and creative culture, both past and present, and to increase access to the works in our permanent collections for the educational benefit of scholars, students, curators, historians, authors, and the people of the Hudson Valley.  

The Hudson River Valley was home to the Hudson River School painters, the first recognized school of American art. In the early 20th century, the Woodstock Art Colony, generally considered to consist of the Byrdcliffe Art Colony (now the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild), the Woodstock Artists Association, and the summer school of the Art Students League, brought significant numbers of artists to Woodstock. The Center for Photography at Woodstock was one of the first organizations to recognize, support and collect photography as fine art. The Woodstock Artists Association and Museum was developed to showcase and, eventually, to collect the work of regional artists. The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art-the museum of the State University of New York at New Paltz-was created to support the academic programs at the college and to serve as a center for Hudson Valley arts and culture. The objects in our collections were made by artists from the region as well as from around the world. Together, they contain a broad cross-section of art from furniture, jewelry, and textiles to drawings, photographs, paintings, sculpture, and multi-media work dating from prehistoric times to the present day. 

As more works are added to the database and more members to the Consortium, this resource will grow as well. We hope you enjoy your visit to our collections!