The roof collapse on James Brooks’s Springs studio during last month’s blizzard underscored how the legacy of groundbreaking artists with ties here has been all but overlooked beyond literature and museum walls. Brooks and his wife, Charlotte Park, were leading members of the Abstract Expressionist movement, which contributed to the United States’ emerging status as the center of the art world in the mid-20th century. At LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, a private institution with an exemplary outdoor art collection, Buckminster Fuller’s “Fly’s Eye Dome” also fell under the onslaught of heavy, wet snow. Both, however, were some distance from public view and, were it not for news coverage and social media, few would have noticed.
The Parrish Art Museum has a Lichtenstein installation and rotating-light art that can be seen from Montauk Highway. There is a Bill King on the East Hampton Town Hall lawn. Guild Hall has had a changing display of modest sculptural pieces across from The Star’s Main Street office. But art that can be seen and appreciated by people passing by is largely limited to private property.
Part of the lack of public art may have to do with the New England Puritan views of East Hampton’s early colonists. A sort of conservative modesty prevailed from the town’s founding in 1648 through the 1870s, when the bon vivant Tile Club artists scandalized the locals, and into the 20th century Ab-Ex painters’ boozy antics. East Hampton is somewhat less prudish now, yet its important artistic legacy remains mostly out of sight.
Selecting and placing public art can be a tense process. Tastes differ; heated arguments flare up. Nonetheless, bringing some of the best works into greater view seems well worth it. Who knows — maybe a next generation of artists would be inspired?