PERMANENT EXHIBITS
Worked/Wild
Get to know the people of Essex County by visiting our award-winning Worked/Wild exhibit. Community discussions gave rise to complex themes and competing agendas about life in the Adirondacks. “Us and Them” dichotomies mixed with shared emotional responses to the land: loneliness and isolation vs. the tourist season hustle and bustle; the richness of nature contrasted with human poverty. This exhibit expresses pride in this place, love of the landscape, and how much the past reflects who the people of Essex County are today. Despite the differing perspectives, residents and visitors alike care deeply for the historic and environmental future.
Adirondack Fire Towers
Take a climb up the most easily accessed fire tower in the Adirondack Park! Our fifty-five-foot fire tower, installed in 1989 from the remains of two authentic Adirondack fire towers that were dismantled, offers one of the best views in town. The accompanying exhibit describes the role fire towers have played in the history of the Adirondacks. The exhibit combines photos, text, and maps to explain early fire tower history, locations of existing and past fire towers, and current fire tower issues of removal, retention, and restoration. This exhibit has been recently updated and includes a new section on "Fires in the High Peaks," funded, in part, by the Cloudsplitter Foundation, Pearsall Foundation, Lake Champlain Basin Program, and NYSCA.
Adirondack Suffragists
This exhibit was installed in 2017 for the Centennial of Women’s Suffrage in New York State and focuses on national, state, and regional dimensions of the women's campaign. Though preceded by many western states in state-level action, New York was nonetheless a major national battleground in the fight for women's rights in general and in the struggle for the passage of a national woman's suffrage amendment - one finally ratified in 1920 as the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Beginning in 1848 with the Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, and continuing well into the early 20th century, New York women such as Inez Milholland, from Essex County, led the national "Votes for Women" movement. The exhibit has been recognized by Governor Cuomo as a valuable destination on the NYS Path Through History and has been visited by Senator Gillibrand and Senator Betty Little. The exhibit has had several additions over the years, including sections on Women and the Great War, the Temperance Movement, and the New Woman of the 1920s. The exhibit is sponsored in part by the New York Council for the Humanities, NYSCA, and Senator Betty Little.
SEASONAL EXHIBITS
Logging The High Peaks
Lumbering the highest mountains in New York State was a dangerous and precarious job, where everything had to be worked by brute manpower and horses. Deep snows and frigid winter temperatures, mountains over 4000 feet with 45-degree slopes, logging camps high in the mountains dozens of miles away from civilization, and swollen rivers filled with log jams, all made being a lumberjack a tough occupation. This is the story of the people who worked the Adirondack High Peaks bringing timber off the slopes to market. This exhibit is funded in part by NYSCA and the Essex County Arts Council.
THE ROSENBERG GALLERY
SPECIAL PROJECTS
Blue is the Atmospheric Refraction I See You Through
“Blue is the Atmospheric Refraction I See You Through” by Randi Renate is a sculptural encounter in which two viewers have similar, yet distinct, experiences of climbing twin spiraling staircases that are recessed into a larger dome. The twin staircases require mirrored movement; shared movements trigger mirror neurons, which enhance human empathy. With this acknowledgment, the work grants a sense of belonging, and, even for a brief moment, a sense of unity through a creation of common ground and shared experience. Inspiration for the artwork was specifically drawn from the artist’s first-hand experience traversing the Adirondack mountains in the spring and summer of 2020, coinciding with artistic research on allocentric spatial perspective and atmospheric refraction. The blue color finish of the work is drawn from our expansive atmosphere: seeing from a distance when at the top of a summit; from such heights, the texture translates to color washes. This participatory installation offers a space of encounter—a terrain to see and be seen by others, to recognize and be recognized.
This project is neither a presentation of the museum nor part of our season or programming - we are simply the venue. This project is made possible, in part, with the funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and administered by the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts.
The artist Randi Renate was born ‘en caul,’ in San Antonio, TX. Her diverse, large-scale architectonic structures agitate an investigation on the somatic and cognitive ways of understanding our embodied being-in-the-world. Randi Renate received a B.F.A. in Studio Art and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014, moving to Berlin in the spring 2015, where she maintained a studio and artist-run project space, TRACE. Randi Renate is a 2020 M.F.A. graduate from the Sculpture Department at the Yale School of Art.
Hiking in the Adirondack High Peaks
This interactive exhibit explores High Peak’s hiking history and the role that advocacy and hiking groups have played, specifically in the High Peaks region, dating back to the mid-19th Century. It highlights the work of the Adirondack Forty-Sixers, the Adirondack Mountain Club, the Summit Stewards, hiking pioneers, old-time guides, and other historic and contemporary figures, while featuring many of the items in our collection. The exhibit is sponsored by the Adirondack 46ers, Grace Hudowalski Charitable Trust, Cloudsplitter Foundation, J.M. McDonald Foundation, NYSCA, and individual contributions.
Arto Monaco and the Land of Makebelieve
We believe in having a place for young children to play! The Adirondack History Museum possesses a collection of over 500 Arto Monaco/Land of Makebelieve artifacts, many of which are on display in our colorful, multimedia exhibit that highlights the work of this beloved Essex County artist. The Land of Makebelieve, which was one of his most magnificent creations, opened in 1954 in his hometown of Upper Jay. The park was built to a child-sized scale with over twenty miniature buildings and attractions, including a castle, a riverboat, a train, fairy tale houses, a stagecoach and an entire Old West town. The amusement park was in operation for 25 years, and attracted up to 100,000 visitors annually. Destroyed by a flood in 1979, it was forced to close. Arto Monaco's designs can still be seen in Santa's Workshop, located in Wilmington, and at the Great Escape, located in Lake George. In creating this exhibit space, we have followed Monaco’s dictate that children are meant to play by adding coloring tables, wooden toys, and a dress-up room. This exhibit is sponsored in part by by the Charles Wood Foundation and NYSCA.
Transportation
Our longest-running permanent exhibit focuses on classic styles of transportation used in Essex County – from sleds to bikes to carriages, travel through the mountainous Adirondack Park has always presented unique challenges. The display includes our signature 1887 Concord Stagecoach, peddler’s wagon, buckboard wagon, the bobsled “Ironshoes,” two cutter sleighs, piano box bossy, and a hand pumper fire engine!
Community Ties
Community Ties is a series of curiosities we’ve collected over our 75 years of operations. Items tell the stories important to the people who have lived and worked within Essex County. Highlights include a hand press used to print the local paper in Keeseville, a 1920s stage curtain from the Lewis Grange Hall that is beautifully painted with local business logos, and a dental chair used by Manya Gerson in Elizabethtown, who was one of the first female professionals in the county. Many consider the highlight of this room the story of Henry Desbosnys, the last man hanged in Essex County. Artifacts include his artwork and writing, the noose that hung him, and his skull! A new exhibit room is currently being built to update this exhibit - opening next season!
Centennial of the First 46ers
2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the first 46ers - Herb Clark (#1), George Marshall (#2), and Robert (Bob) Marshall (#3). Our feature exhibit, CENTENNIAL OF THE FIRST 46ERS, will share the journey of these three men in their amazing accomplishments. Their spirit of adventure has led many fellow hikers to follow in their footsteps. For Bob, George and Herb, their joy of climbing mountains in the remote corners of the High Peaks still resonates throughout the Adirondacks, the country, and the world. Their love of this wilderness taught others the amazing pleasure of hiking off the beaten path and gave reason to preserve not only the Adirondacks, but also wilderness areas everywhere. What began as a trickle from the 1930s through the 1960s, has become a steady stream of hikers, where close to 20,000 climbers have achieved coveted 46er status. This exhibit is funded by the Adirondack 46ers, NYSCA and the Essex County Arts Council.
The Elements: Images of Hope
The 2025 exhibition in the Rosenberg Gallery the striking graphite drawings of Dan Keegan, a resident of Westport, NY. Keegan’s Climate Change Series is based on the four elements - earth, air, fire, and water. It is the idea of the natural harmony among these elements that led to the creation of this exhibition, addressing climate crisis and the disharmony we are experiencing today. The works in this exhibition are intended to be signifiers of the fragility of our planet and that we can and must come together to address pressing issues.
Working from photographs, Keegan combines images, multiple perspectives, inversions and even duplicates to create views of nature not wholly sensible but almost believable.
THE ELEMENTS: IMAGES OF HOPE will be on display from May 24th to October 12th in the Rosenberg Gallery. The exhibition is curated by Dan Keegan and Frissie Reed (ECHS Trustee). An Exhibition Celebration is scheduled for July 11th, 5pm - 7pm. Dan Keegan will be in attendance to discuss his work and inspiration. Artwork available for purchase directly from the artist.