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Now nearly 80, Tyler, who lives with her husband, Jim Hughes, in West Fairlee, is exhibiting more than 20 works at the Converse Free Library in Lyme.
The landscapes and portraits are but a small fraction of what she’s produced over the years but it’s a representative sample, Tyler said in an interview at the library, which is showing her work both in the Betty Grant Gallery downstairs and upstairs in the main reading room.
Her landscapes of farmers in the fields, harbors along the Maine coast, hot air balloons and horses and hens are brilliantly colored, with thick dashes and splotches of paint.
Tyler’s portraits show faces emerging out of a taupe background, rather than just a white canvas. She uses yellow ochre with a little black in it to get that color, which she prefers to starting out on a white canvas. She begins all of her paintings by priming the canvases with that color because to start with white, she said, “would kill it.”
Tyler grew up in both Larchmont and Toronto, Canada, before going to Smith College in Northampton, Mass., where she met and studied with the famous printmaker and illustrator Leonard Baskin. Baskin was also known for making handmade books, and Tyler gravitated toward that endeavor, winning a Fulbright to study graphics and lithography in Hamburg, Germany, in the late 1950s.
When she returned to the U.S. she moved to her parents’ house in Thetford, where they had retired. She’d bought a second-hand printing press which the town permitted her to use in the basement of Latham Library. So Tyler crafted her own handmade books, many of them editions of poems. Emily Dickinson enthralled her, Tyler said, and she was perhaps the one poet whose work she printed most often.
While in Thetford she met her first husband, Edward Tyler, then a pastor at the Thetford Hill Congregational Church. They married in the early 1960s, and had one daughter, Hilary Tyler, who lives in East Thetford. Together they helped found the Parish Players but Gillian Tyler is now the last surviving founder. “I’m it!” she exclaimed while offering a mock salute.
Edward Tyler died in 2004; Gillian Tyler married Hughes three years ago.
Although there are numerous landscapes in the show Tyler doesn’t paint from life, or en plein air, but takes a photo first and paints from that. She knows her subject when she sees it, she said, and carries a camera with her when she takes a walk. When she gets down to painting she tries not to labor over it too long, preferring to just get it out.
“You’ve got to see it with your original eyes, you lose it when you get to being a perfectionist,” Tyler said.
The portraits are also done from photographs, Tyler said. The portrait of which she is most fond, of the late writer Grace Paley, who lived in Thetford, shows Paley’s face emerging from the yellow ochre background. The picture catches something of Paley’s inquisitive intelligence, and also her down-to-earthness.
Painting is what sustains Tyler. “I love to do it, I feel that’s when I’m at my best, my truest,” she said.
“Gillian Tyler: A Golden Anniversary Retrospective” is up in the Betty Grant Gallery at the Converse Free Library through March.
Openings and Receptions
Starting Saturday, the Howe Library in Hanover will exhibit paintings by Boston artist Tatiana Yanovskaya-Sink, who also spends time in the summer in the Sunapee area. She also has taught at AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon. “Beauty Will Save the World” will show in the library’s Ledyard gallery through May 3. There is no opening reception.
As part of Youth Art Month, the Royalton Memorial Library in South Royalton will host an exhibition of art created by 50 South Royalton School students, from elementary through high school. There will be a public reception on March 30, from 4 to 6 p.m. The show continues through April 14.
Of Note
This Friday the Main Street Museum in downtown Rio Blanco, otherwise known as White River Junction, decks itself out like a casino, with table games, a raffle boasting such fabulous prizes as meals out and stays at area hotels, a real-live chocolate fountain (Count me in! Can I swim in it?), and a cash bar. The event is a fundraiser for the museum, with tickets $35 in advance and $40 at the door. For information go to www.mainstreetmuseum.org/casino-night.
Also on First Friday in White River Junction, the Zollikofer Gallery in the Hotel Coolidge holds a reception from 5 to 7 for “The Spirit of Odanaksis,” an exhibition of work by members of a group Upper Valley plein air painters. The show remains on view through May 10.
Long River Gallery holds a First Friday reception at its White River Junction location from 5:30 to 9 p.m., and another reception at its location in Lyme on Wednesday for an exhibition of paintings by Stephanie Reininger, from 6 to 8.
Long River owner Dave Celone said he hopes to close the Lyme location by the end of the month and concentrate his efforts on the White River Junction gallery, which includes a teaching space.
Ongoing
Aging Resource Center, Lebanon. The Senior Art program exhibition is on view through mid-March. Hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Arabella, Windsor. The gallery exhibits works by local artists and artisans in a variety of media, including jewelry, oils, acrylics, photography, watercolors, pastels and textiles.
Baker-Berry Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover. “Tibetan and Himalayan Lifeworlds” runs through March 31.
Chandler Gallery, Randolph. “Story Lines,” which features work by Ed Koren, Randolph cartoonist Phil Godenschwager, Burlington’s Alison Bechdel and other faculty and artists from the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, is on view through March 11.
Center for the Arts, New London. The center shows work by Penny Koburger at the New London Inn, and pastels and oils by Gwen Nagel at the Lake Sunapee Bank on Main Street. In celebration of Youth Art Month, work by students from New London Elementary School is also view at the Whipple Gallery in New London. All three shows end April 29.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon. The winter exhibitions include stained glass by Kathleen Curwen; wildlife paintings by Bradley Jackson; watercolors by Kathleen Fiske; a selection of work from the Vermont Watercolor Society; photographs by Seth Goodwin; pen and ink drawings by David Cooper; and photographs by Ruth Connor, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Geisel School of Medicine, who spent time in Western Kenya documenting the work done by I-Kodi, a grassroots non-governmental organization dedicated to improving education and healthcare in the region. Through March.
Hanover League Fine Craft Gallery. An exhibition of new jewelry by Upper Valley artists Amanda Cloud, Brenna Colt, Susan Gallagher, Maria Gross, Rosemary Orgren, Matteo Sadaat, Elizabeth Schwartz and Sandra Seymour continues through Tuesday.
Hood Downtown, Hanover. “Let the Garden Eram Flourish,” a show of painting, video and drawings by Iranian-born, Brooklyn-based artist Bahar Behbahani, continues through March 12.
Kilton Library, West Lebanon. A selection of work from the Hanover Street School and the Mount Lebanon Elementary School will be exhibited at the library: Hanover Street students show their art through March 22; Mount Lebanon students’ work will be on view April 6 through May.
Library Arts Center, Newport. “Kent Stetson: The Art of Handbags,” through March 24.
Long River Gallery and Gifts, Lyme. The works of Hanover fiber artist Shari Boraz and silversmith and jeweler Case Hathaway-Zepeda are on view through Sunday.
“As If — Weavings From Oz,” by Henniker, N.H., artist Doug Masury, continues at the Long River store in White River Junction.
Scavenger Gallery, White River Junction. Closed through March 10.
SculptureFest, Woodstock. The annual celebration of three-dimensional art generally ends when foliage season does, but 80 percent of the show is still on view. “Grounding,” a show of site-specific work curated by sculptors Jay Mead and Edythe Wright, is on view at the King Farm. For more information, go to sculpturefest.org.
Tunbridge Public Library. “Two Perspectives of Rural Vermont,” a show of multi-media collages by South Strafford artist Jeanne McMahan, and pen and ink drawings by Peter Neri, of Sharon, runs through March 26.
Two Rivers Printmaking Studio, White River Junction. An exhibition of prints by Sheri Tomek runs through March 31.
White River Gallery at BALE, South Royalton. “Expansions,” a show of acrylic paintings by artist and illustrator Jasper Tomkins, runs through April 30.
Nicola Smith can be reached at nsmith@vnews.com.