Park update: From 7am – 3:30pm on Monday, March 18 and Tuesday, March 19, the High Line will be partially closed between 23rd and 30th Streets due to construction. Visitors can enter and exit at the 23rd Street stair/elevator and the 30th/10th Street stair. The entrances from Hudson Yards, the Connector, and the Spur remain open.

Skip to content
Express to
your inbox

Sign up for the High Line newsletter for the latest updates, stories, events & more.

Loading...
Please enter a valid email address!
Thanks for signing up, we'll be in touch soon!
Photo by Cristina Macaya

Valerie Hegarty

Autumn on the Hudson Valley with Branches

November 2009 – November 2010

Valerie Hegarty’s artwork often poses as artifacts of art history gone awry. Through the combination of real and fabricated components, Hegarty leaves the viewer to wonder at the veracity of the transformation. For the High Line, she has created a work that imagines a nineteenth-century Hudson River School landscape painting that has been left outdoors, exposed to the elements. Hegarty’s painting is based on Jasper Francis Cropsey’s Autumn on the Hudson River from 1860, a bucolic landscape that shows none of the effects of the Industrial Revolution. Hegarty’s canvas is tattered and frayed, and the partially exposed stretcher bars appear to be morphing into tree branches, as if reverting back to their natural state.

Artist bio

Valerie Hegarty (b. 1967, Vermont) lives and works in New York City. Recent solo exhibitions include the Brooklyn Museum, New York (2013); Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York (2012); Malborough Chelsea, New York (2012); Locust Projects, Miami (2010); Museum 52, London (2007); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2003), among others. Group exhibitions include shows at David Castillo Gallery, Miami (2012); Madder 139, London (2011); Gallery Poulsen, Copenhagen (2011); The Hole, New York (2010); Malborough Chelsea, New York (2010); Brooklyn Museum, New York (2008); and Artists Space, New York (2007), among others.


Support

This High Line Art Commission is presented by Friends of the High Line and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. High Line Art Commissions are made possible by Donald R. Mullen, Jr. This program is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and from the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties.