VT VOICES : LYMAN ORTON

of how it was made , and he desperately wanted to add it to Bennington Museum ’ s collection . I made a donation to help them get it , and it was just terrific .

Q : You come from a family of avid collectors , which is certainly evident in the collection of hard-to-find goods at the Vermont Country Store . Do you or any of your family members have any other notable collections ?

A : My father collected classic cars from the 1910s , 20s , and 30s . He had a 1925 Pierce-Arrow , which most people have never heard of . He also had a Rolls-Royce that was made on American soil in Springfield , Massachusetts . I didn ’ t even know that Rolls-Royces were made in America with left-hand drive . My father also collected plaster statuettes made by a famous sculptor named John Rogers . They were humorous , fun things that made everyone smile and laugh , and they were the most popular sculptures in America in the 19th century . In the late 1800s , many people bought one for their parlor . My

father built a considerable collection of them . It was a good thing that my mother , Mildred Orton , did such a good job of running the Vermont Country Store ’ s business books . My father would have run the store out of business with his car collection and statuette collection if she hadn ’ t !

Q : Your collection encompasses the works of many Vermont artists , including Rockwell Kent , Mead Schaeffer , and Luigi Lucioni , among others . How did you define the parameters of your collection , and how did those parameters help to shape it ?

A : I believe that the title of the exhibition at Bennington Museum and SVAC , For the Love of Vermont : the Lyman Orton Collection , perfectly sums up the parameters . The collection in itself was born out of my love for Vermont . Many of the most prominent artists in the collection were active in southern Vermont in the Manchester and Dorset area , which is very close to where I grew up in Weston . When the famous New York Times art

critic , Edward Alden Jewell came up to visit Vermont in the 1930s , he was incredibly impressed by their artworks , and a lot of the artworks that he saw back then are present in my collection . The paintings were created by artists that moved here with their families , and they would not have stayed if they didn ’ t love Vermont as much as I do . I choose artworks based on whether they connect with me and provoke the same feelings of love for Vermont that inspired the artists that painted them . I don ’ t have a collection that is only comprised of “ star ” artists . I have famous artists present in there , but I don ’ t pass up a painting because it wasn ’ t painted by someone as well-known as Rockwell Kent or Luigi Lucioni . I gravitate towards paintings from what I call “ The Golden Age of Vermont Art ,” which I consider to be from the 1920s through the 1960s . I have several fantastic paintings from the 19th century and the latter half of the 20th century , but the primary focus is the early-to-mid 20th century .

Q : When Edward Alden Jewell came to season 49

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