Distinctly Dutch - New York State Museum

museum news
Exhibition Explores Hudson’s Voyage
and Its Legacy
This cannon (NYSM H-1937.4.1) was made
in 1630 in Amsterdam and may have been
sent to Fort Orange that same year. In 1663,
at the outbreak of the Second Esopus War,
Jeremias van Rensselaer demanded the
return of a cannon previously lent to the
Dutch West India Company, and this one
may have been sent by mistake. The logo of
the company is found on the cannon’s barrel.
The cannon remained in the van Rensselaer
family, and according to tradition, was only
used to announce the birth of a male heir,
until it was bequeathed to the Museum in
1939 by Mrs. William B. van Rensselaer.
Must-See
Exhibitions
1609
Opens July 3
Mapping the Birds
of New York:
The Second Atlas of
Breeding Birds in
New York State
Through August 16
Berenice Abbott’s
Changing New York:
A Triumph of Public Art
Through October 4
An upcoming exhibition at the State
Museum investigates, presents, and
celebrates 400 years since the 1609
voyage of Henry Hudson.
The aptly named 1609 opens July 3 and will
be the featured exhibition at the Museum during
its eight-month stay. The exhibition introduces
visitors to information about Henry Hudson,
Native People of New York, and the Dutch period
in New York by dispelling some commonly held
myths and showing the legacy these groups have
left to residents of New York state and to the
nation as a whole.
The New York State Museum collaborated
with the State Archives, State Library, and Office
of Educational Television and Public Broadcasting
on 1609, and these institutions provided additional
expertise, documents, and artifacts for the
exhibition. Archaeologist Dr. James Bradley, an
expert on Native Americans, Russell Shorto,
an authority on colonial Dutch history, and Steven
Comer, a Mohican Indian living within the original
territory of the Mohican people, consulted on the
project. The exhibition will also feature paintings
by Capital District historical artist L.F. Tantillo.
1609 presents two very different 17th-century
worlds: the world of Henry Hudson and the Dutch
and the world of the Native People of New York.
The exhibition investigates the myths that Hudson
deliberately set out to discover a new land and that
Native People were happy to see these newcomers.
It looks at the interaction of these two cultures
living in New Netherland and addresses the fallacy
that Europeans took advantage of Native People
and destroyed their culture. The exhibition gives
visitors a view of the trade-oriented existence of
New Netherland’s residents, both European and
Native, and show how Native People adapted to
these new people and materials in their world.
The exhibition concludes with an educational
and fun view of all things New York left to us by
the Dutch and Native Peoples of four centuries past.
Visitors can explore and discover the origins in New
York of contemporary cultural mainstays, such as
street plans, community names, holiday celebrations,
cultural diversity, and religious and cultural tolerance.
In addition, the exhibition takes a look at two harsh
realities of this cultural interaction: the introduction
of European-style slavery and the displacement of
New York’s Native People from their homelands. The
exhibition will be on view through March 7, 2010. n
– Michelle Stefanik, Exhibition Planner
Upcoming
Exhibitions
Through the Eyes
of Others
African Americans and
Identity in American Art
Opens September 8
This Great Nation
Will Endure
Opens October 2009
For more details on
the exhibitions, go to
www.nysm.nysed.gov.
Summer 2009 n 3