What is the Sea Cliff Village Museum doing to honor the legacy of Harold Ransom Stevenson?

The Sea Cliff Village Museum opened the Stevenson Academy: The legacy of Harold Ransom Stevenson and his Sea Cliff Atelier on Sept. 21, honoring the artwork and legacy of Harold Ransom Stevenson and his impact on the Sea Cliff community.

Stevenson, who died in 1985, was a long-time resident of Sea Cliff who taught art to many North Shore residents, and was one of the few artists to train under Norman Rockwell after serving in World War II. Stevenson arrived in Sea Cliff in 1950, where he opened a studio in his home to train the next generation of North Shore artists. Stevenson, who was mostly against modern art, trained his students using charcoal, before having them transfer their ideas onto the canvas with paint and water colors.

“He was an artist who studied under Norman Rockwell, and since Rockwell didn’t take on too many students, he was somewhat of a rare protégé,” Courtney Chambers, the museum’s director, said. “He trained a generation of North Shore artists. Several of his students are working commercially as illustrators, artists, or both, including some on Long Island. I’m in contact with some of his students who are now in Virginia or New Jersey. As a teacher, he was remarkable and beloved by his students.”

Stevenson married another artist, Alana Galanos, in 1965. When Galanos died in 2009, her nieces, who took over Stevenson’s estate, donated several pieces of their artwork for presentation in the museum.

The museum has showcased the different aspects of Sea Cliff history for many years, and artwork has been an important part of that history. The exhibit has around 54 different paintings on display, featuring many different forms of Stevenson’s work. Some of his different types of paintings include oil, watercolor, charcoal, pencil drawings and magazine covers. Chambers said she believes that Stevenson’s work is one of the hidden gems of Sea Cliff art that they are happy to bring to light.

“I think we try to showcase different aspects of Sea Cliff history,” Chambers said. “For a very long time, there have been a lot of artists in this town. We know about the Methodists, about the summer resorts. But Sea Cliff was an artist town, and this is an artist that maybe and a part of Sea Cliff’s history that people may not know about. We now have a tremendous archive of his work and we wanted to show it to the community.”

The exhibit is on display on both floors of the museum, with the first floor featuring the works of Stevenson, and the second floor presenting Galanos’s art, as well as the work of some of his former students.

During the time he spent in Sea Cliff, Stevenson taught many students, who would go on to enjoy long careers in art and illustration.

Many of them volunteered some of their art from when they were working with him, which will now be on display alongside Stevenson’s work.

His first-ever student, Gennaro Larice, volunteered several pieces of artwork that they worked on together — one of which was an award-winning contemporary art painting at one of Stevenson’s art competitions. The piece is now on display at the museum, along with the ribbon Larice won at the event.

“I was born in Italy, and my dream was to go to fine arts school there, and when my mother told me we had to move, I was devastated and thought my dream was over,” Larice said. “When I came here, my relatives met Stevenson and took me to see his work, and the first thing that struck me was his Joan of Arc, and I said, ‘Man, this guy is my type of artist.’”

Many of his former students have been working to keep Stevenson’s legacy in the forefront. Galanos, along with some of his former students, even kept his academy afloat after he died.
The academy was moved to Oyster Bay in 2004 under the direction of Attila Hejja, one of his former students, before it eventually closed for good in 2008.

“When he was sick, I went to visit him and when I walked in, he gave me a hug and told me never to give it up,” Larice said. “So, I always try and look up in the sky now and tell him that I’m following what he told me.”

Stevenson’s impact on his students changed their lives, in what he taught them and the messages he brought to them.

“He was a wonderful man and teacher,” Douglas Barnaby, another former student, said. “When I got in touch with him, he brought me in, gave me a review of what he taught and then had me sit in with his classes, which were always full. Through those classes, I met so many residents and was introduced to the town, and now my wife and I have been in Sea Cliff for 56 years.”

The exhibit will be on display at the museum, at 95 10th Ave., through Dec. 18. For more information, visit the museum website at SeaClifMuseum.org.