November 5, 2025
Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,
Recently, we dedicated seven large bronze busts of Hudson River School painters by the noted sculptor Greg Wyatt against a stupendous backdrop of the Hudson River and Palisades in the Long Garden. Depicting Thomas Cole, Frederic E. Church, Jasper Cropsey, Thomas Moran, Asher B. Durand, Albert Bierstadt, and Sanford R. Gifford, the impressive ensemble is punctuated by our two towering ancient Roman columns at the Vista Overlook. A most generous gift of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, they recall the artistic displays that peppered the landscape in Samuel Untermyer’s time. An engraved label on the back of each sculpture provides a detailed biography of the artist.
Dear Friends of Untermyer Gardens,
Recently, we dedicated seven large bronze busts of Hudson River School painters by the noted sculptor Greg Wyatt against a stupendous backdrop of the Hudson River and Palisades in the Long Garden. Depicting Thomas Cole, Frederic E. Church, Jasper Cropsey, Thomas Moran, Asher B. Durand, Albert Bierstadt, and Sanford R. Gifford, the impressive ensemble is punctuated by our two towering ancient Roman columns at the Vista Overlook. A most generous gift of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, they recall the artistic displays that peppered the landscape in Samuel Untermyer’s time. An engraved label on the back of each sculpture provides a detailed biography of the artist.
Earlier this week, the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy received the 2025 Excellence in Historic Preservation Award, which was presented by the Preservation League of New York State, the state’s leading preservation organization. It honored the Conservancy’s role in the metamorphosis of Untermyer Gardens over the past fifteen years and continues the regional and national recognition we have received. Samuel Untermyer’s ambition for the garden was grand, and so is ours.
With colder weather setting in, winter preparations are underway in the garden. Tropical plants are being moved indoors, annuals are being cut down, the cascades and canals will soon be drained, and our intrepid volunteer greeters are off duty until the spring. We are blessed with a huge community of volunteers who help in so many ways, and at the end of the season we celebrate them at our annual Volunteer Party. Look at all these happy faces!
Our high school interns conducted the last harvest in the Vegetable Garden, and it was quite a haul. They were the third cohort this year and did an outstanding job. The garden now looks somewhat bare, but its underlying geometry is still quite interesting.
Work on the Stumpery has picked up speed. The gardeners and garden class members have planted about 200 woody plants, and our creative masons went to town building ten whimsical stone cairns. Some of them contain bits of flotsam that have been recovered from the garden over the years. The Stumpery will be one of the most distinctive and original features of the garden, and I believe it will be the largest in the world when it’s completed.
Timothy Tilghman is here to share how he and his team go about installing the Grand Holiday Illumination – it’s quite an operation!
Kind regards,
Stephen F. Byrns, President
Stephen F. Byrns, President
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