Monument to Unknown Mountain Poets is part of a series honoring the thousands of unheralded poets, playwrights, music makers, etc., who have sought out the unseeable, spiritual mountain legacy found here today among our Taconics, Greens, and Whites—a legacy from a time not so long ago when our mountains were the height of the Central Asian Himalayan range. That original soaring mountain essence is alive today, drawing and nurturing us all.

About Harry Rich

Harry Rich’s paintings grow out of the soil of the New York School, remaining within the Modern tradition. A graduate of Pratt Institute (BFA) and Wesleyan University (MA), he moved to Sandgate, Vermont, with his wife the painter and writer Mallory Rich fourteen years ago, confident that Vermont’s aesthetic charms would not influence his studio work. Wrong!

A lifelong painter, Harry has taught, founded enterprises, consulted for profits and nonprofits, along the way receiving international, national, and regional honors for design. Asked to give a brief statement about his approach to creative work, he quoted Michael Kimmelman, former New York Times chief art critic who wrote in 1999, “Making music is a way to be in touch with the divine.” “I would include the word ‘painting’ with Kimmelman’s ‘music’,” Harry said.