E.C. Scranton Memorial Library Art Collection Walking Tour
Donated by Penny and Allan Katz, 2023

The tour starts on the first floor of the E.C. Scranton Memorial Library, where you’ll see our first artwork and commemorative plaque to the right of the computer area and across from our Information Desk.

1) Bertrand Dorny – The Eclipse, 1988

Bertrand Dorny was a French artist, painter, engraver, and graphic designer born in Paris on July 2, 1931. He worked at the workshop of André Lhote and Johnny Friedlaender. He built his work by deriving accepted techniques such as engraving, collage, or folding paper to achieve a personal style. He taught at the École de la Grande Chaumière and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Proceed into the computer area to view Artworks 2 – 4, starting on the left and proceeding clockwise around the room.

2) Richard Tobias – Decade, 1989

Richard was born in 1952 in New York City. From 1972-1974 he was a student at the Philadelphia Art College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. In 1973 he studied at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. In 1975 he was a student at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

3 & 4) Emilio Sanchez – La Panaderia, 1973 and La Casa Nueva, 1972

Emilio Sanchez was born in Camagüey, Cuba in 1921. He began his artistic training at the Art Students League in 1944 when he moved to New York City, where he lived until he died in 1999. His art is well represented in private and public collections, including over thirty museums like the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Artwork 5 is just across the hall, on the left-hand side of the first-floor Information Desk.

5) Kunihiro Amano – Dark Changes 7

The artist Kunihiro Amano was born in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, in 1929, but his family moved to Tokyo early in his life. He was largely self-taught, though he did attend classes for three years at Musashino University of Art in an unofficial capacity in the post-war years. Artworks by the artist are in the collections of major museums like the Washington Library of Congress and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

Proceed to the main Borrowing Desk to see Artwork 6, just behind the desk on the left-hand side.

6) Vincent Longo – Double Lateral, 1988

Born in Manhattan in 1923, Vincent Longo graduated from Cooper Union in 1946 and later studied at The Brooklyn Museum School. Longo himself taught from 1957 to 1967 at Bennington College in Vermont. He also taught from 1967 to 2001 at Hunter College in New York City. Citing Piet Mondrian as a dominant influence, Longo’s work with grids and centralized images also derives inspiration from Eastern philosophy, often the Mandala. His work is in dozens of public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Artworks 7 – 10 are located behind the Borrowing Desk. They are viewable during staff-led art tours only.

7) Paul Rickert – Evening Sentry, 2005

Paul Rickert was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1947. At 19, he was drafted and served in the Vietnam Combat Artists Program from August 1966 to December 1966. Following his discharge, Rickert enrolled in the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, graduating in 1974. Many of his pieces feature architectural elements, an interest Rickert developed as a student.

8) Olaf Otto Becker – Haifosstal I, Iceland 2000

Olaf Otto Becker, born in 1959 in Travemünde, Northern Germany, studied communication design, focusing on photography in Augsburg and philosophy and religious studies in Munich. After his studies, he worked as a freelance designer and photographer. His impressive landscapes deal with processes of change caused by climate change and other man-made influences. Between 1999 and 2012, he documented the changes wrought by man in Iceland’s landscape.

9) Martha Bradford – The Dam, 1982

Martha Bradford, born in Hanover, New Hampshire, was known for her realistic landscapes, especially of Maine, and architectural subjects. She was a 1989 Massachusetts Artist Fellowship Finalist in Painting and a 1985 Fellow in Drawing. Her work is included in 60 Years of North American Prints: 1947 – 2007 (David Acton). She is also in many editions of The Painter Wow! Books (Cher Threinen-Pendarvis) and Mastering Digital Printing (Harald Johnson). She attended Mount Holyoke College and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston Evening School in Lithography.

10) Robert Schmid – Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1999

Throughout his career, which saw fifty one-man shows, Robert Schmid promoted art education through his books, articles, workshops, seminars, and television presentations, and he traveled widely for his subjects. Richard held a Doctorate in Fine Art and received The John Singer Sargent Medal for Lifetime Achievement. Since the publication of his landmark book on landscape painting in 2009, Richard has been involved in major projects. The first, in 2011, was a large painting of Abbotsford House, the manor home of Sir Walter Scott in Melrose, Scotland, which won a viewing and praise from HRH Queen Elizabeth during the grand re-opening ceremonies of the house and visitors center. Another project, begun in 2011, was the new expanded edition of ALLA PRIMA entitled ALLA PRIMA II, completed in 2013, and now in its fourth printing. Exhibitions of Richard’s art were also mounted at the National Academy of Science on Cape Cod and Wellesley College in Boston.

Next, head into the Children’s Library and go to the back-left corner of the room to see Artwork 11. You will walk past many beautiful artworks donated by local artist Sandy Kensler — continue until you see a small seating area with windows overlooking the parking lot.

11) Valta Us – Woman Picking a Flower, 1982

Walter (Valta) Us was born in an Austrian refugee camp during WWII. The 14th of 15 children, he emigrated with his parents to Connecticut in 1951. An accomplished musician, he studied classical guitar at the New England Conservatory and has played in rock and roll bands.

Artworks 12 – 14 are located in the Children’s staff offices. They can be seen through the office windows and are available for a closer viewing during staff-led tours only.

12 & 13) Lise Lemeland – Behind the Airplane, 2009 and Aileron Roll, 2009

Lise Lemeland’s paintings are exhibited both nationally and internationally. In 2010, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum acquired three of her paintings for their permanent collection, and these works were part of a featured exhibition at the museum called High Art in 2013. Her works have been acquired by many corporate collections in the U.S. and abroad, such as Hilton Worldwide, Fidelity, General Electric, Universal NBC, and Barr & Ochsner GmbH Inc. Lise is an aerobatic pilot, has competed in the northeast, and strives to convey the physiological as well as visual experiences of flying aerobatics in her paintings.

14) Ernesto Chorao – Misty Evening, 1986

Ernesto Chorao was a visual artist born in 1933 and died in 2005.

Artwork 15 is in the Circulation Office. It can be seen through the office window and is available for a closer viewing during staff-led tours only.

15) Altoon Sultan – Lilac Bushes, Apple Tree, Castleton, Vermont, 1987

Altoon Sultan was born in Brooklyn, not far from Coney Island. She was educated in the borough, getting her BA and MFA degrees from Brooklyn College. Her first painting exhibitions, in 1971 and 1973, were at a co-op gallery in Soho, but soon she was represented by the prestigious Marlborough Gallery, where she had her first show in 1977. She went on to have many solo shows in NYC, at Marlborough, at Tibor de Nagy, and throughout the U.S. over the course of more than 45 years. Her work is in many museum collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the National Gallery of Australia; the Yale University Art Gallery; the Library of Congress; and the Fleming Museum of the University of Vermont.

From the main hallway, walk past the Boston Post Rd. entrance and into the café. Artwork 16 is hanging to the left of Elevator A.

16) Nanette Carter – Passage #16, 1988

Nanette Carolyn Carter, born January 30, 1954, in Columbus, Ohio, is an American artist and college educator living and working in New York, best known for her collages with paper, canvas, and Mylar (archival plastic sheets). Carter coined the term “scapologist” to describe her practice of creating sea, sky, and landscapes in which she explores political themes and the drama of human nature. These fictional, natural worlds provide the artist with a space to visually reflect on the coexistence of injustice and benevolence in contemporary society. Working exclusively on frosted Mylar, Carter applies layers of paint, markers, and pencil to produce textural yet luminous pieces.

Artwork 17 is hanging over the sink in the Café area, while Artwork 18 is at the top of the stairs leading to the mezzanine.

17 & 18) Cheryl Warrick – Where You Are, 2000 and Waiting for the Rain, 2000

Cheryl Warrick is a Boston-based abstract painter and surface pattern designer. In 1996 she received a Master’s in Education from Lesley College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, RI, and the Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA. Warrick’s colorful and intuitive mixed-media paintings invite you to find visual relationships and meaning in shapes, textures, symbols, landscapes, and patterns.

At the top of the stairs, or exiting the elevator on the second floor, take a left into the rotunda to view Artwork 19 above the newspapers on the left-hand wall.

19) Alice Dalton Brown – Patrick’s Porch

Alice Dalton Brown was born in Danville, Pennsylvania in 1939 and grew up in Ithaca, New York. She studied language and literature in France and liberal arts at Cornell University and Oberlin College. After graduating in 1962 from Oberlin with a BA in studio art, she returned with her husband to live in rural upstate New York. There, while experimenting with various artistic styles, studying Joseph Albers’ color theories, and raising a family, she developed what would become her lifelong work of using the observed world, photographs, and memory to create images that express her ideas. After moving to New York City in 1970, her work found a wider audience and has been exhibited internationally, with over 30 one-person exhibitions in New York City, elsewhere in the United States, and abroad, most recently in Seoul, South Korea. Her work is included in many private, public, and corporate collections, including the American Express Corporation, the Butler Institute of American Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

From the rotunda walk back towards the main stairwell and look to the right into the hallway where the Scranton Library Friends have their ongoing book sale to find Artworks 20 & 21.

20 & 21) Larry Horowitz – Untitled and Maine Pond Reflection, 1988

​Larry Horowitz is an American landscape painter born in 1956 in New York City. He graduated from SUNY Purchase and immediately won the prestigious and coveted position as apprentice to Wolf Kahn. Horowitz currently shows in galleries across the United States and Canada. His work is in many important corporate and private collections. He has been selected to participate in the Arts-In-Embassies program at the United States Embassies in Finland and Russia. Horowitz’s work captures the beauty of the American landscape with expert use of texture and color that invites imagination and discovery. Although he paints en plein air, he has a firm grounding in abstract expressionism through his education with former students from the Bauhaus and Hans Hofmann schools. He has combined both points of view to develop his unique language.

Continue to the main staircase, and from the landing, look up and to the left for a great view of Artwork 22.

22) Dona Nelson – Quiet Night, 1981

Dona Nelson is an influential American painter and educator best known for immersive, gestural abstract works employing unorthodox materials, processes, and formats to disrupt conventional ideas of painting and viewership. Nelson has had twenty solo exhibitions of her work, primarily in New York City. In 2014, she was included in the Whitney Biennial. In 2018, she had a large survey show of her paintings at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. Nelson had a survey show of her work in 2000, accompanied by a full-color catalog, at The Weatherspoon Museum of Fine Art in Greensboro, NC. Nelson’s paintings have been written about in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art in America, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. Nelson’s work is included in the public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Proceed to the top of the staircase, where you will see Artwork 23 on the right-hand side.

23) Kunihiro Amano – Dark Changes 14, 1970 (see previous bio)

The next artwork is in Study Room A, to the right of the elevator. It can be viewed through the window, and a closer viewing may be possible if the room is not in use.

24) Monte Nagler – Tranquility, 1988

Monte is a noted writer, lecturer, and teacher of photography. He has conducted many classes and seminars throughout the world. Not only has he written a popular newspaper column, but he is also the author of six highly successful photography books. Upon completing undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan, Monte Nagler became a car designer and product planner in the automotive industry. Eventually, he turned his creative energy to photography. His passion and drive for photography were enhanced after an intensive workshop with Ansel Adams in Yosemite National Park.

With the elevator on your right, proceed down the aisle past the teen area, and you will see Artwork 25 on the left.

25) Dona Nelson – Reader, 1982 (see previous bio)

Artworks 26 – 28 are located in the North Conference Room and may not be accessible when the room is in use.

26) Grace Mitchell – The Clear Light of Dawn, 1998

Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, Mitchell now resides along the Hudson River and is inspired by the landscape of the lower Hudson Valley. Mitchell has experimented with the techniques of earlier generations of landscape painters, employing many thin layers of glazes to create a luminous evocation of the spirit of this remarkable place. General Electric purchased this artwork from the Allen Sheppard Gallery in 1999. In 2000, it was part of an exhibit at the GE World Headquarters Gallery titled “Women on the Verge.”

27) Charles Ross – Starspace Nightlight Sun Center by Earth, 1980

Charles Ross (born 1937) is an American contemporary artist known for work centered on natural light, time, and planetary motion. His practice spans several art modalities and includes large-scale prism and solar spectrum installations, “solar burns” created by focusing sunlight through lenses, paintings made with dynamite and powdered pigment, and Star Axis, an earthwork built to observe the stars. His work belongs to the public collections of the Berkeley Art Museum, Musée National d’Art Moderne (Centre Pompidou, Paris), the National Gallery of Art, and the Whitney Museum, among others.

28) Brendan Neiland – Cumulus, 1992

Born in Lichfield in 1941, Brendan Neiland has long been fascinated by architecture. His paintings of building reflections are held in various public collections, including Manchester Art Gallery, Museums Sheffield, and Glasgow Museums. More recently, Neiland has turned his attention to street signs and advertisements. These vibrant works mark a radical departure from the monochrome palette of marble, concrete, and aluminum buildings. Over a long and successful career spanning five decades, Neiland has produced many private and public commissions, including for Rolls-Royce, English Heritage, Gatwick Express, and the National Bank of Dubai. His work is held in all of the major UK public collections as well as around the world.

Artworks 29 – 32 are in staff administrative offices and are viewable during staff-led tours only.

29) Charles Stiven – Cycle, 2000

Charlie Stiven was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. Over the past 30 years his work has been shown widely throughout the U.K., Europe and the U.S.A., and is held in numerous public and private collections. His current work is centered on the construction of highly crafted 3D models in which examine vernacular architecture as a metaphor for time, history & social condition. He has received a variety of awards and prizes including those from IAAB Basel and the British Council, has held artists residencies in Serbia & Switzerland, and is an Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy.

30) Russ Warren – Sisyphus, 1982

Russ Warren was born in Washington, DC in 1951, grew up in Houston, Texas, and began training as an artist at the University of St. Thomas, Houston in 1969. He received his BFA in 1973 from the University of New Mexico and his MFA in 1977 from the University of Texas in San Antonio. Warren taught painting and printmaking at Davidson College from 1978-2008 and exhibited widely throughout North Carolina during these years. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Arts Magazine, and Art in America.

31 & 32) Charles Wildbank – Claire Delune (Blue Shadow), 1993 and Sunflowers in Vase, 1990

Profoundly deaf since birth, in overcoming the challenges of learning to listen and speak, Charles Wildbank would sketch pictures of candy bars, fruit, cake, and soda bottles to illustrate his wants. Wildbank was awarded several honors including a fellowship at Yale University School of Music and Art in 1969, a B.F.A. degree cum laude at Pratt Institute in 1970, and an M.A. in Education at Columbia University in 1972. Prompted by the lure of artistic expression that took root as a child, Wildbank gave up teaching the deaf in 1978 and went to Europe. Upon his return, he launched his professional career in his portraits of David Hockney and Luciano Pavarotti and his large display of paintings in the windows of Bonwit Teller in New York and Beverly Hills. In 1983, Cartier of Fifth Avenue presented a salon exhibit of his canvases including his detailed 8-foot-tall painting of the famed Cartier Diamond.

Artwork 33 is located above file cabinets to the left of the administrative offices.

33) Pal Svensson – Double Sky #1, 2005

Pal Svensson is one of Sweden’s leading artists and has an extended experience in public art working with planners and architects. He has made 40 public commissions, won over 15 competitions, and is represented in the collections of the Gothenburg Museum of Art and Adelphi University, New York. Svensson is mainly known for his sculptures, especially his public works. He is renowned for his sculptural work in stone, steel, and glass. “Double Sky #1” is one of his very rare two-dimensional artworks.

Continue to the small hallway on the right-hand side, where you will see Artwork 34, along with other artwork donated separately by local artists.

34) Ernesto Chorao – Interior with Still Life on Coffee Table, 1983 (see previous bio)

Artwork 35 is located in Study Room B. It can be viewed through the window. A closer viewing may be possible if the room is not in use.

35) Monte Nagler – Reeds Patterns, 1988 (see previous bio)

Continue towards the window seating area where you will find Artworks 36 and 37. Looking over this area also gives a good view of Artwork 22: “Quiet Night” by Dona Nelson.

36) Aaron Fink–Pear, 1992

Born in Boston, Fink received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA from the Yale University School of Art. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia. In 2002, a monograph on Fink’s work, Out of the Ordinary, was published, with text by Eleanor Heartney. Fink’s work is represented in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hara Museum, Tokyo, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, among many others.

37) James Coignard – Signification Colorée

James Coignard was a painter, ceramic artist, sculptor, and writer born in 1925 in Tours, France. He was recognized for his colorful, geometric abstractions and exceptional carborundum etchings. The artist’s keen interest in mathematics is evident in all his paintings and etchings. These elegant, rich, tactile prints are done on heavy cotton fiber paper with a rough, organic, and visible texture that has to be seen in person to be fully appreciated. Coignard studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Nice and subsequently apprenticed with the painter Marchand des Raux. After developing a relationship with a gallery in Nice in the 1950s, Coignard began to gain some notoriety. Distinguishing himself as a talented painter, sculptor, and etcher, James eventually began to exhibit internationally. His artwork is now in numerous corporate and private collections and over 20 museums, including the Guggenheim in New York and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

Head back down the stairs (or elevator), and walk towards the Wall Street side of the building (take a left at the bottom of the stairs or go straight off the elevator). Behind the Fiction area, you will find Artworks 38 and 39

38 & 39) Charles Hewitt – Tom-Tom, 1989 and Spruce, 1989

Charlie Hewitt, b.1946, is a nationally known Maine-born painter, printmaker, and sculptor. His work is stylistically rooted in expressionism and surrealism and is both playful and serious. Hewitt’s work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; and in Maine at the Portland Museum of Art, the Farnsworth Museum of Art, and in the art museums at Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby colleges.

Artworks 40 – 42 are located in the Reference office. They can be viewed through the window a closer viewing is available during staff-led tours only.

40, 41 & 42) Ricardo Benaim – Small Open Book, 1991 (3 in series)

Born in 1949 in Caracas, Venezuela, Ricardo Benaim received his BA in Graphic Design in Caracas. He now lives and works in New York, where he taught at the Manhattan Graphic Center. He has been awarded many prizes, including First Prize at the Biennial Latin American Graphic Art Show at the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art in 1987 in New York. His work has been exhibited extensively worldwide since 1979. His first one-man show, “Windows and Graphics,” was held at the Venezuelan Tourist Office in New York. Benaim’s work is in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Caracas, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, and the Albright Knox Museum in Buffalo, NY.

On your way back to the North/parking lot entrance, look down the small hallway to the left to view Artwork 43, the final artwork in the Katz Collection at the Scranton Library.

43) Mela Lyman – Typewriter 21, 1981

Mela Lyman has had work in more than 40 exhibitions in museums and galleries nationally and has been reviewed in ARTFORUM, Art New England, and New Art Examiner, among other magazines and newspapers. She received a Diploma from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (1978) and a BFA from SMFA at Tufts (1979). She has won numerous awards from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Artists Foundation, Massachusetts. Lyman has been described as “a virile draftsperson with an architectonic command of space.”